


Blood and Sulfur

by svedka9



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Creepy Goth Rhea, Crimson Flower, M/M, Monster Dedue, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Spoilers, Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:34:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26285776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svedka9/pseuds/svedka9
Summary: Dimitri survives the Battle of Tailtean and must fight his way back to Fhirdiad to save Dedue, but what plans does Rhea have for the blood oath he swore? Crimson Flower/Dimitri POV.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A departure from my usual here, low on sex and high on grisly melodrama. Lightens up a bit starting in Chapter 4. M rating is for violence, language, and sexual situations (but no porn). If you're looking for NSFW/18+ Dimidue content that's not at all grisly, please check out my other stories posted on AO3: Prince of Fire and Glass and Doorways to Darkness.
> 
> Also note that I've altered the wording of some English-language game dialogue. All changes are minor and intentional.

In the rain, we could hear the Imperial Army's approach long before they came into view. The size, the organization, the preference for heavy armor all landed heavily into their march, echoing off the rocky hillsides that ringed the Tailtean Plains. It pounded in my throat like a second pulse, more ponderous than the real one. Insistent, uncompromising, as if Edelgard could force even my blood into line.

She would not. These were my lands she marched into now—my kingdom and my battlefield. The Knights of Seiros hadn't intercepted them as planned, but I knew every ridge and fall of this landscape like a lover's skin, and my soldiers were placed at advantageous ground, waiting. Waiting for the Emperor's vaunted strike force to break upon their swords, and be crushed by the Church behind.

To my right, Dedue stared hard into the mist where our enemies would soon emerge. His jaw was set, and to anyone who knew him less, he might have looked as stone-faced as ever. But there were calculations running behind his eyes, and the cut of his expression was more _defiant_ than _resolute_. The barest difference, but enough that I noticed.

Was he… afraid?

"Dedue."

He collected himself and retreated into his normal, steady mien. "Yes, Your Majesty?" I hated that word even more than "Highness," which at least recalled happier times—before the war, when the most he had to fret about over me were sleepless nights and restless wanderings. There was nothing _majestic_ about the disheveled, wraithlike creature I'd become.

"Something troubles you," I said. "Tell me."

"Nothing worth taking your mind off the battle."

At least he knew better than to lie outright.

"And if it takes _your_ mind off the battle?"

He sniffed and drew himself up. "Impossible, sir."

I almost laughed, and fondness for him filled my chest like light through a broken bottle. My beloved. My eternal companion. I fought this war for the fallen, for Duscur, and for him.

Before I could press him further, one of our scouts rushed up through the rain. Her boots splashed a hurried rhythm in the mud, far quicker than the approaching army. "My lord," she wheezed, bowing.

"Speak."

"The front line of the Imperial Army has emerged from the canyon and now stands on the plains."

I looked up sharply and peered into the distance. The rain was starting to slow, but heavy storm clouds covered the field in darkness, and the most I could make out were the fiery lamplights of Heroes' Relics. They were too far away to resolve into shape, but one of them must have been Edelgard's jawbone axe. Another, the spine-like serrations of the Sword of the Creator. And finally… a shield.

Our spies had warned me that "Young Master Fraldarius" still rode with the Emperor's guard. Rodrigue and Ingrid lay dead in the rubble of Arianrhod, and still Felix heeled to the will of that fork-tongued, murdering despot. He was beyond redemption just like her. Like that professor.

The relics would make them easy to hunt in the dark. By the light of Areadbhar, they could find me as well. I hoped they would. What a delight it would be if they ran up one by one, each to be punctured and tossed aside like hay on a fork. My ancestors would sing.

_Come to me, Edelgard. I, too, have learned to script a dance._

I dismissed the scout and set my lance. "Let's go, Dedue," I said. "To the front, to await our enemy. We can finally reward the patience of our dead."

"No." He put a hand on my shoulder, finding the gap between the spaulder and the fur trim, and squeezed. The pressure was grounding in a way I'd come to know well. "I will go. You stay here."

"The hell I will." His touch had eased my fire to a smolder, but I was not about to let him rush into battle without me. "Don't tell me you expect me to cower in the back line. I don't need protecting."

He looked at me then—really looked at me, in the solemn, adoring way he did when we were alone—and brushed his thumb over my cheek. He really was afraid. In his right mind, he would never have dared to touch me where others could see. Any other day I'd have been glad of it; I was proud of Dedue, proud that I had earned the love of this splendid and honorable man, and I wanted everyone in Faerghus to know it. But he had no higher god than propriety.

"Dedue… we _will_ prevail. I will not fail to get revenge for all who have fallen."

He sighed, pulled me into a tight embrace. Around us, the roar of a hundred voices rose up from the field as the battle was joined, and lightning magic flashed against the clouds.

"Don't… be taken in by your own legend," he said. "The Tempest King of Faerghus is not invincible. And he's needed for more than just killing."

I buried my face in his neck and held on.

"You must survive," he continued. "Hold the throne. Restore Duscur. Only you can do that."

"Not without you."

"Yes. Without me. If necessary."

" _No._ " I pushed myself away from him and staggered back. "Who could I reach in Duscur without you to vouch for me? Your people need you, Dedue!"

And I—I—

But when he backed away, down the hill and toward the fight, I let him go. Before this man, I was leaden and helpless.

"You are not allowed to die," I called after him. "Swear to me."

"I cannot, Your Majesty."

Even marching to his death, he couldn't say my name. Frustration burst out of me in a roar. " _Then stay where I can see you!_ "

His lips quirked into a smile, and he acknowledged my request with a nod. Then he turned his back on me… and walked on alone.

I would abide by his wishes and stay behind, but I wasn't about to do nothing while he risked his life. I ordered the mages surrounding my position to move forward and cover the front line, and I sent my battalion to guard them. I stood alone on the stone ruins, watching the battle as if from a private box at a joust, alight with rage.

I had no use for martyrs. I had enough of the dead piercing my sides with their spurs. I needed living allies, retainers, and friends in order to meet their demands. I needed the man I loved to stay with me to keep me sane.

With Dedue and the mages holding the north bank, the Imperial strike force began moving east along the river to challenge the cavalry. If the Church came through and flanked them as planned, they'd be penned in. All the while, the beat of the main Imperial Army's footfalls thrummed in my chest—they were still coming. But no matter. If we could end this here, kill Edelgard and her top generals, the rest would fall apart quickly.

It was still too dark to make anyone out until a break in the clouds cast a shaft of afternoon light on Sylvain. He was unhelmed, and his bright red hair glowed like a torch beside the Lance of Ruin. He was holding perfectly still, seemingly unperturbed by the highly mobile pack of imperial soldiers heading for his position.

Two Imperial wyverns flew at his group of knights. There was a pained shout, so loud and piercing that I heard it even from where I was standing, and a sudden explosion between the two armies blew the wyverns off course and sent them spinning through empty air. If only I had Ashe or Felix to pick them off with arrows… but both fought for the Empire now.

I ran to the edge of the ruins to see what had happened. The whole area was covered in thick smoke, but Sylvain still hadn't moved. All at once, a pair of monstrous hands clawed away the smoke from within, and the terrible roar of a demonic beast rent the air.

_No…_

Every nerve in my body recoiled, and I had to fight the urge to shudder. For it to appear so suddenly—the "Flame Emperor" and her allies had made beasts out of students once, back at the Academy, and this one wore a golden mask like the ones that attacked the monastery beside the Imperial Army five years ago. Had they done it again… to my soldiers? Such a hideous act was—

No. The imperial strike force was retreating, beating a path away from where the beast had appeared. And Sylvain… he hadn't moved at all. He wasn't shocked or afraid. He knew this was coming.

I looked at Dedue, and he turned to meet my gaze with an expression of grim intent.

"What have you _done?_ " I yelled.

To the west, one after another, more Faerghus soldiers erupted into clouds of sulfur and emerged as grotesque mountains of fangs and fibrous skin. It sounded like they were _cheering_ , eager for the opportunity to throw their bodies away in service to victory. In service of me.

It ripped such a wail out of me that I couldn't be sure I wasn't turning into something less than human myself.

"Stop, stop—!"

_I don't want this. I never asked for this. It's not—_

"Not worth it?" My father's voice slithered into my ear like a sea worm, and a ghostly hand drew the hair back from my neck. "Is an end to my torment in _hell_ not worth it?"

No… tactics matter. Humanity matters. My father, my _real_ father would have understood that.

"You would have killed them all anyway," he said. "Fighting to the last man like a desperate wretch. Are you going to cry just because their human suffering ended before their lives? How soft you are. Each of those soldiers is worth a hundred of you, willing to sacrifice more for me than you ever will."

He was right… he was right, but—

"Even that Duscur man," he went on, with a smirk in his voice. "Faerghus killed his family, burned his village, salted his country's fields, yet he gives more for it than its own king—"

With a yell, I spun around and cleaved the empty space where he'd stood in two; the apparition ripped apart and dissolved into echoing laughter. If everyone in Faerghus had to become a heartless monster just to survive, if there was no culture or laughter or love, there would be nothing worth giving it all for.

"Listen to me!" I shouted, though the noise of the battlefield was quickly escalating. The beasts' metal-shearing roars beat against the clash of swords, the shrills of horses, falling bodies, death screams, bolts of fire and thunder, and beneath it all the inexorable march of the army that followed. "Soldiers of Faerghus, if you can hear me, throw down the Crest Stones! _Fight_ for your lives, don't cast them aside!"

Another beast burst into view in the distance, leaving me in despair. If this was what we'd become, there was no hope left.

On the front, the battlefield was a ruin of blood and muck. Bodies filled the riverbed, more blue tunics than black, and monsters charged indiscriminately through the crowd. The cloud break had closed and Sylvain had vanished from sight, but the Imperials were falling back to the east unobstructed—he was either unhorsed or dead. Overhead, a wing of falcon knights flew in from the capital and chased after them, reinforcing our defenders on the north bank.

Soon a bright light burst from the forest in the east, and an army clad in white rushed out to meet the Imperials. Huge metal golems that dwarfed even the beasts appeared out of nowhere and started to run down everything in their path. It was the Knights of Seiros, led by Saint Seiros herself, terrible and luminous.

Too late to save my countrymen who'd given their lives to the Crest Stones. But if Rhea could finish this quickly, we might salvage a victory to honor their lost souls.

The moment she appeared, two baubles of gold flame, like twin fireflies, raced from the Imperial line into the Church's formation. Heroes' Relics—Edelgard and the professor, most likely. They converged on Rhea in a coordinated strike and connected; her glowing white figure staggered backwards, spraying green blood.

Then, quick as she'd come, she fled.

She _fled_ , and her army of zealots followed, leaving only the golems to crush Kingdom and Empire soldiers alike.

I gave that raving lizard bitch sanctuary in my own home, gave her my blood, took on thousands of Church refugees I could barely feed, and this was how she repaid me—by tucking her scaly white tail and running without swinging her sword even once. I would kill her for this betrayal. I would rip through Edelgard and find Rhea on the other side, break all her fangs, pierce her great horned head.

I should have done it long ago.

* * *

The Knights of Seiros did not come with us to Faerghus after the fall of Garreg Mach. It took them two months to convince Rhea to give up her attempt at a swift recapture and fall back to friendly lands. In truth, I admired it; such tenacity was of a kind with my own heart. Gustave and Dedue had to haul me bodily away from the monastery when we made our escape. Looking back, it was a miracle they managed it.

When the Church leaders came to my court to ask for sanctuary, I was already king. I do not say "crowned" because there was no coronation; I accepted no one's authority to bestow on me what was already mine. There was no feast day, no ceremony, no parades—I declared myself king and it was done. I had a war to plan.

I agreed to the alliance immediately and opened my castle to former residents of the monastery. To Rhea, I gave the king's apartments once occupied by my father. I hadn't passed through those doors since he died, and I had no intention to start just because I'd inherited his title. She accepted graciously, but distantly, her heart hardened by betrayal. This, too, I understood.

Still, I was concerned about a possible power struggle within the Kingdom over the Church's presence, especially once Rhea disclosed her identity as Saint Seiros to me. An archbishop, even an ancient one, did not outrank a king in his own lands, but Faerghus had received its sovereign authority from the Church, and was bound to rule according to its will. There was no more final word on the will of the Church than Seiros herself, who wrote its teachings. If she and I ever disagreed, who had the right to decide? And what if the noble houses, or the people, went to war with each other over the divide?

It came to a head one day when she and I chanced to pass in the hall—a completely mundane meeting, one that would normally have ended with a head nod—and she asked me to swear fealty to her, right then and there.

I think I looked bewildered for a moment and smiled tightly, certain I had misheard her. "Pardon?"

"Swear fealty to the Church of Seiros," she said, with a far-off smile like this was some kind of lark, but the tone of her voice told me she meant it quite seriously. "I think it would be best for the people to understand there is some ordered hierarchy in place here, don't you?"

I couldn't disagree—she'd lit on the very thing I feared—but for her to suggest it so blithely in passing without any diplomatic overture was bizarre. And yet… hadn't I made it a feature of my rule to throw off needless procedure and ceremony for practical action?

"To be frank…" She lifted her gaze to some part the ceiling, like there was enlightenment to be found there. "I… need some assurance of your loyalty. It's not personal, you understand. I have just been… betrayed, many times throughout my life. A formal pledge from you would put me at ease."

It took everything I had not to throw out my arms and point out the four corners of the stone fortress that protected her as my _pledge_ , but I bit back my offense. "What did you have in mind?"

"Within the hierarchy of the Church, before a Cardinal is ordained, they must swear an oath in blood and exchange a shard of a Crest Stone. It is how they prove their commitment to the faith. Traditionally, I would be the one to gift the stone, but as you have now offered me your home and your protection, it would seem more fitting coming from you. Don't you agree… Dimitri?"

Among those living in the castle, she was the only one who used my name, but from her I did not welcome it. It was intimate but hollow, a cold wind through my corpse.

"We… have Crest Stones in the royal treasury," I said. "I don't know why, but—"

"Your ancestor, Loog, had help from some… unsavory elements when he rebelled against the Empire. No doubt he received the stones from them." She smiled thinly. "But none of those are the stone I require. Bring me the Areadbhar."

This sent me over the edge. "You ask me to _hand over_ my family's relic?"

"It is merely a symbolic gesture. I will not keep it from you. The Holy Mother and I both know you will need all your strength for the battles to come."

I didn't understand the point of all this—I was not an official of the Church, nor did I desire to be one, and it was still outrageous for _anyone_ to demand proof of a king's loyalty while they hid behind his walls and slept in his father's bed. But this alliance was critical. The Kingdom boasted better fighters and discipline than the Empire, but Edelgard had the advantage of resources, size, and morale. Our only chance of survival was to cooperate with the Church, and to direct both forces from a unified command rather than try to coordinate separately. If I had to bend a knee to occult drivel to have my revenge, it was worth the insult.

So I had my lance brought to me. The glaive tip glowed with red fire when I accepted it from my footman, and he immediately scurried off. I offered it to Rhea, unsure how this ceremony was supposed to unfold, but she shook her head. "First, your hand."

I passed the lance to my right hand and held out my left. She unfastened my gauntlet and peeled off the glove beneath, revealing skin. Her fingers were cold as she turned my palm up, murmuring incantations too low for me to hear.

I was not surprised when she produced a dagger from her sleeve—she'd mentioned an oath in blood, and such rituals had been a common show of devotion to one's lord in ancient Faerghus. The blade was a wicked thing, triangular, made of yellow metal that was too hardened and sharp to be gold. She sliced the edge across my palm and drew down hard at the end, leaving a gash that bled horribly, too much for an act that was supposed to be symbolic. I roared in shock and closed the hand into a fist, but she snatched at me and forced it back open with those clammy, reptilian fingers, pushing down on the wound so the blood would pour out into a glass phial.

She was either supremely confident or supremely stupid to maim me without warning while I held a Hero's Relic.

"What are you _doing?_ "

"Activating the stone," she said, calm as you please, with a strange, serene smile on her face. I had done enough injury myself to know that this only hurt because she wanted it to. My arm burned with the desire to ram my lance through her throat, but I clenched my jaw and held firm. Edelgard first, then Arundel, and then we would see if the Archbishop still wished to test my ire. If Dedue were there, she would have been dead on the floor.

Once the phial was filled, she slipped it into a pocket of her raiment and took Areadbhar from me with one hand. She held it out lengthwise and turned my hand so that the last drops of blood landed on the Crest Stone. Red flames licked at my skin but did not burn, and the bony fibers in the blade stirred to life.

At last she released me, and waved a sigil of healing magic onto the wound before turning her attention to the relic. While I cradled my hand and rubbed feeling back into the skin, she grazed her fingertips over the twitching glaive head, whispering assurances to it. With the fibers articulated, it resembled a skeletal, long-fingered hand, crushed together in rigor. Finally, she touched the tip of her dagger to the Crest Stone and chipped it, freeing a small, glowing sliver that she caught in her palm. I half expected the hallway to explode from such a violent release of power, but the shard merely shimmered a moment before going dark.

"What will you do with that?" I asked.

She smirked. "I'll hold it close to my heart." She gave a last, loving pet to the lance before handing it back to me. "Do not fear. The power of your relic will not be impacted."

She turned to leave, but I called out to her. "Hold a moment, Lady Rhea." I clenched and released my fist—the skin was whole, but the pain remained. "If you're going to walk around my castle with something that dangerous, I insist you tell me how you'll keep it safe."

"Sweet child," she simpered. "You could live for two hundred years, and I will still have handled Crest Stones for many times that. You haven't the faintest idea what they are or how they're used. One might find it presumptuous to lecture me in such a circumstance."

She was right, but I growled. "And you should mind how you speak to me in _my_ kingdom."

"Your fealty belongs to me now, dear Majesty," she said, in a haunting voice that made my gorge rise as she walked away. "I will hold you to your vow."

* * *

Once the Knights of Seiros were gone, the Battle of Tailtean went to hell in a heartbeat. Taking them out with one attack had sent Imperial morale soaring, and they pushed their assault to the north bank. Without enough human soldiers to make tactical decisions or even respond to orders, our line was crumbling. My highly trained warriors had been replaced with mindless beasts, just in time for the first phalanx of the Empire's main army to appear at the edge of the plains. It was a disgusting farce.

I readied my lance and planned my angle of attack. Dedue had his ideas of where my responsibility lay, but there was no way I could hold back now, with defeat rushing through us like a burst dam. The Kingdom's history would end if we did not make this stand.

Before I took off running, though, I looked for him, just to see that shock of white hair and know that he was still all right, that there was still at least that much left to live for. When I found him, he was backing away from the fray, axe lowered. Slowly, like the flow of time was grinding to a stop. The clouds broke again, lighting up the field in front of him—mud and corpses shining with soft, sweet light, casting him in silhouette.

He dropped his axe and touched a small pouch at his belt. All else flew out of my head as I sprinted across the field, screaming his name.

" _Dedue, stop!_ "

He unbuckled his gauntlet and took off his glove before reaching inside the bag for the Crest Stone. It was a hideous thing even unactivated by Crest blood, like a lump of petrified flesh. When he squeezed it in his hand, it began to glow.

"No, don't!" No matter how fast I ran, he was still so far away. It was like running in water, running in a dream, reliving over and over the moment when my father's head was taken and I was not strong or fast enough to stop it. " _Please!_ "

He turned to face me at last, and the reverence and warmth I found there left a lump in my throat. What did it matter how much he worshipped me if he wouldn't listen?

If he could so easily cast me aside?

Still, I ran. And as the bands of cursed power erupted from the stone to encircle his head, he smiled at me. Mouthed words.

"Dedue…"

The Crest Stone enveloped him in a black well of power, then he vanished from sight. He was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

The force of the transformation released a burst of wind that hurled me off my feet. I landed on my knees, several lengths away, and fell forward onto my hands like a beggar at the chapel door.

For a moment, crouching there, I had the small, selfish desire to bury my face in the mud, cover my head, and never look up again. If I couldn't see it, I'd never know it was real. If I suffocated, or if Imperial soldiers came and tore me apart, prone and unmoving, I could die believing he had survived somehow. That the stone's power had failed, and he was still out there, steadfast, solemn, and waiting for me.

But he would never be waiting for me. And Father wouldn't allow it.

"Get _up_ , you spineless trash."

I lifted my eyes. The sky was still open behind where Dedue had stood, bathing the battlefield in a golden glow, until a massive helmed head reared back and blotted out the light. A huge, bipedal monster, twice the size or more of any demonic beast I'd seen. Its arm muscles bunched like a man's as it roared with unfettered rage.

The smell of it hit me like an ocean wave. Since the tragedy, I could only scent rotten things: rats, thieves, rust, corruption, death. Now too the remains of my lover, fetid with the curse of the Goddess's displeasure. It stank of sulfur and wormed flesh, hotter than Ailell. I thought of Dedue's body decomposing inside of it and retched.

It—he—turned from me to face the Imperial strike force, dragging his massive hands across the ground to sweep them all aside. I was near enough to hear them screaming as they fell back.

Their terror awoke my purpose. If they'd never come here… if the Empire had just let all of us alone… if _that woman_ hadn't colluded with a deranged, blasphemous cult, no one would have to lose their soul to such an awful fate. My soldiers would still be alive. Rodrigue and Ingrid would still be alive. Glenn, Father, Stepmother, all of Duscur. Everyone.

And Dedue…

I got to my feet and wiped the vomit off my mouth. My cheeks were tearstained. I had no time for it.

I picked up Areadbhar from where it had fallen and swung it wide, leaving a trail of fire where the glaive tip cut the air. It burned as dry as my throat, thirsting for blood. With a rasping yell, I charged into the enemy army to take my place at Dedue's side. He may have given up, but I wouldn't. I would kill every Imperial soldier here, or if I died I would at least leave my own teeth in their throats instead of some mindless beast's.

They were so focused on Dedue, they didn't see me coming. I knocked the first two into the river, thick with sodden corpses, then stabbed the third. I allowed myself the simple pleasure of snapping all his ribs with one downward twist before moving on to the next. One by one they fell beneath me, lubricating my lance with their blood so that each strike was smoother, harder, more satisfying.

Someone was laughing. Was that my father's voice? Or mine?

Liberating Imperial entrails from their bodies was so easy I began to get bored. There were no generals on this front, none of my old schoolmates. I was suddenly possessed with the desire to kill someone I knew—to see the flash of recognition and terror on their faces when they realized that _I_ , the one they'd befriended and betrayed, would be the one to claim their lives on this accursed field. That they had made a grave mistake in standing against me in my own land. If I couldn't get to Edelgard first, one of them would do for a start.

The beast's hand swooped down, picked up a fistful of soldiers, and hurled them across the plains, clearing a path to the other bank. I raced across the shoal to find the bulk of the army, but when I crested a small rise to get a full view of the field, there wasn't much left to find. The heavy infantry had bypassed the battle entirely, probably redirected to Fhirdiad. It looked like several members of the strike force had also departed to chase down the Knights of Seiros. Only a handful of battalions and scavengers remained, clearing out the last of the monsters and Rhea's dolls.

It inflamed my rage all the more. Though some of my human soldiers still fought on the west flank, the Empire had taken the army of Faerghus for dead and our remnants not even worth their attention. We were spat on and forgotten as they marched to their next conquest, the next corpse pile of the innocent.

But they hadn't secured my head yet. Surely they weren't foolish enough to think I would retreat. Edelgard would not underestimate me.

I ran for the nearest group, not bothering to conceal my advance. They heard me coming and attacked me rather than fleeing—brave, but suicidal. I ducked under the first sword swing and brought my lance up to split open her throat, flung her body at her approaching friends to knock them down. The two left standing had been smart enough to fan out and come at me from opposite sides; I threw my lance through one and planted my boot in the chest of the other, breaking his back and sending him crashing into the mud.

When I went to retrieve Areadbhar, the body that held it was still alive. I crouched down and grasped their neck in my hand.

"Do you repent?" I growled.

They mustered all the blood in their mouth and spat, too weak to even hit me. I brought my gauntleted fist down on their face, killing them in a single strike.

I stood up and wrenched the lance out of their body. The noise had attracted attention, and more soldiers swarmed, led by a knob-necked figure in black who recognized me with one golden, hawk-like eye.

Hubert.

There was a fresh chill in the air; the sun was starting to set behind the clouds. I opened my mouth and breathed steam, beckoning.

"The king has taken the field!" Hubert shouted, spinning so all around would hear. " _Kill him_. Faerghus is finished, but he'll hound us to the ends of the earth if we don't bury him here!"

One of those things was certainly true.

But these dregs he sent against me were nothing. They came at me from all sides only to collapse and fall away like torn sacks of grain under my blows. I shrugged them all aside and marched forward toward my intended kill—Edelgard's prized rat, the Minister of the Imperial Household.

When I stood before him, when there was no one else left to attack me, he greeted me with a bow. His confidence was infuriating.

"Your Majesty," he said, smooth as a silk scarf pulled into a garrote. "What a lovely surprise. I feared perhaps you'd turned into a ravening beast like all your soldiers." He looked me up and down, smirking at my bloodstained armor and matted furs. "Well… perhaps you'd already done so, in your own way."

I had no patience for this. "Where is Edelgard?"

His smirk curled into a mocking grin. "Gone. Pursuing the Archbishop to Fhirdiad. Your pitiful army wasn't worth her attention even before they lost faith and cast their lives into the abyss."

I snarled and pointed my lance at his heart, flaring with ire.

"Oh, touched a nerve, did I?" He laughed. "Tell me, did you cry when they all went up like torches? When it came clear that not one of them believed in you, _Tempest King_ … not even your most loyal dog."

Blood rushed in my ears and I charged him, not caring to wonder why he stood there, arms open, unmoving. If he wanted to accept death at my hands just to taunt me, I would give it to him.

Before it connected, my lance was knocked aside by a fast-moving axe from somewhere above. The noise in my ears wasn't blood; it was a diving wyvern. It reared back just out of reach, battering me with heavy pumps of air from its wings, but I planted my feet and held firm, leaving a perfect opening for Hubert to cast whatever manner of dark magic at me. I hit the ground and rolled out of the way, dodging it by inches.

"Some awareness in you yet, I see," Hubert sneered. The wyvern landed on the ground in front of him, and on its back I recognized Ferdinand, flipping his axe into a defensive stance with both hands.

When I swung at his wyvern, he twisted it out of the way using only his hips and rode its momentum to come at me from the other side. The axe hooked under my spaulder and tore it free. I remembered this from our training matches at the Academy—he was _very_ good on a mount, far better than Sylvain or even Ingrid, and even I'd had trouble hitting him sometimes. For all the noise he made about honor and nobility, he was slippery as a serpent. He and Vestra were more alike than he'd ever admit.

But serpents could not survive in Faerghus; there was no warmth for them to steal. He was all skill and no power. He could avoid me all day, but he'd never kill me and he knew it. All I had to do was land one hit and he would never get up again.

The hiss of dark magic rose up from the ground and I leapt away from it. I couldn't see Hubert, but I raised my lance to the sky and called down a bolt of lightning in retaliation; there was a strangled cry as it struck true. Ferdinand's mount beat its wings at me again, but I was immovable.

I heard running footsteps behind me and spun around with a heavy swing to meet them. My lance connected with an animalistic shrill of power against the Aegis Shield; the two relics blazed as they ground together, sparking plumes of fire.

We fell back from each other, and I retreated back another step to keep both him and the Imperial nobles in my sights. My lips peeled back in a grisly smile, though I took no joy in this, none at all.

"Felix."

"Go," he said, turning his head toward the others while keeping his eyes on me. "Follow the others to Fhirdiad. I'll handle him."

Hubert emerged from behind the wyvern's wing. He didn't look too badly injured from the lightning—he was a warlock, after all—but he was holding his left arm awkwardly, and his hair and collar bore a satisfying singe. He narrowed his eyes at Felix and didn't move to respond. Shrewd not to put his full faith in a man he'd recruited from the enemy… although, in Felix's case, unnecessary.

"How does it feel to serve the Empire, Felix?" I asked. "You killed your own father for them and they still don't trust you."

"I didn't kill him," he said tightly. "And _shut up_. Is there enough man left in you to fight me one on one, or are you as much of a beast as those other fools?"

I snorted, but bent my left arm and lay my lance across my wrist in Faerghus's traditional dueling stance. He mirrored my motions with his sword, and we faced each other, seething. In the distance, men and women were still shouting, dying beneath the cries of monsters, the rattle of golem gears.

It started to rain again. Hubert said something to Ferdinand I couldn't hear, then turned and ran to meet the rest of the army. Ferdinand eased his wyvern back from us and laid his axe across his lap—a sign that he wouldn't interfere, but was still watching.

I dropped my stance and ran at Felix. He blocked my first strike with his shield, but it was powerful enough to send him skidding back. While he was off balance, I swept the lance shaft behind his legs; instead of fighting his momentum to avoid it, he backflipped onto his hands and landed on his feet, well out of my range. Fancy. But too dangerous to keep up, on this slickening ground.

We traded blows, blade against blade. He knew my attack patterns well and was able to anticipate most of my strikes. My oldest friend. And still he'd found it in himself to turn his back on me, on all of Faerghus, on human decency.

"How can you go on supporting these people?!" I shouted. "Ingrid is dead. _Your father_ is dead."

" _He came at me!_ " His shoulders heaved, and his breath misted in the darkening air before the rain battered it away. "He came _right at_ me, said he was going to _kill_ _me_ to clear the stain from the family name, or whatever self-righteous bullshit."

 _That doesn't sound like Rodrigue_ , I thought.

"No shit," Felix replied, and I realized I'd said the words aloud. "He sounded like _you_."

I stopped short. Was that true?

"You've been weeping over your dead father so long, I bet you can't even imagine how I felt when he tried to run me down. You will _never_ know what that's like."

No, I—

I thought of my own father, always in my ear, always pushing, demanding, threatening. Chasing me into my nightmares. Telling me to kill myself for pig feed if I didn't have the strength to kill the Emperor. It wasn't real, I knew… but I could easily imagine it.

"Ingrid was the same," he went on, "She was dying, her lungs were collapsed, but she used the last air in her body to tell me you and she had become too much alike."

I lowered my lance.

He did not lower his sword. "Why do you think all these people gave up their lives to become demonic beasts? Huh? It's because of _you_. You and your mad obsession with vengeance."

"No!" I said. "I never—"

"You may not have said it, but your sick single-mindedness pushed them to it. They knew you would stop at nothing, wouldn't care about protecting them or their country or anything else until the Emperor was dead. They came here knowing they were going to die for your desperate struggle, so why _not_ go out in a burst of monstrous glory? You demanded they give everything to this fight and they gave it. They _loved_ you, even though you weren't capable of loving them."

No, that wasn't true! Dedue—

I turned back to the river to find him, but there was nothing—no towering helmed monster, no Imperials fighting against it. The bank was lost and the army had moved on. He had fallen.

He had fallen because… I left him there. I left him behind and charged ahead into the Imperial Army, bloodthirsty and laughing. I hadn't even looked back once to see if he was still alive. He must have known. He must have known and that was why he held me back, why he sacrificed himself, so he wouldn't have to watch me do it.

Felix was right… it was all my fault.

* * *

When Felix first left us to join the Black Eagle House, it seemed a natural fit, and I approved the transfer without a second thought. It would be good for him to learn from the new professor—he was so enamored with their fighting style it brought a serenity to his face like I'd never seen—and it helped keep us out of each other's hair. When I did cross paths with him, he seemed happier, or at least less like an exposed nerve… though he'd still snap at me if I tried to say anything.

Not once did it occur to me that he would defect to the Empire once the year was done.

After the incident at the Holy Tomb, their entire house disappeared from the monastery. Some thirty students suddenly gone, as if they'd never existed. Only Flayn remained, sometimes standing outside the classroom door, staring inside of it as if toward a past that had happened hundreds of years ago instead of the week before.

We didn't know what became of Felix, but we suspected the worst. That Edelgard—or more likely Hubert—had him killed, or threw him in a cage somewhere to keep as a hostage. In my mind, I added his name to the ranks of the dead, and counted him off along with the rest when I destroyed dummy after dummy in the training hall, shattering them into clouds of sawdust while we could do nothing but _wait_ for the Imperial Army to invade.

I didn't see him again until the monastery was lost and we were forced to flee. Something had happened on the south terrace, where Rhea was posted—several buildings collapsed, and a thick cloud of dust covered the entire complex and wafted up to the west side where we were standing. Ingrid and Sylvain were yelling at me to escape; Gustave had one of my arms and Dedue the other. I wanted to charge into the confusion and find Edelgard, dash her head against the rubble and leave her blood behind as a signature on the calamity she'd wrought.

Then out of the chaos strode Felix, stone-faced and calm, staring us down with narrowed eyes. He was unhurt, poised… and most importantly, armed.

Ingrid gasped. "Felix—you're all right! Thank the Goddess you escaped."

He glanced back at the ruin of the south terrace. "That? Yeah." A flash of regret passed over his face. "Not everyone was so lucky."

It wasn't until much later that we learned his professor was believed lost in the collapse.

Ingrid didn't understand what he was saying. "No, the _Empire_. Where were they holding you? How did you get out?"

"They weren't holding me anywhere. I joined Edelgard's cause willingly." His mouth set in a line. "I've come to ask you to do the same, before this gets worse."

Sylvain threw himself in front of me to help keep me back. "Felix—are you _joking?_ "

"How can you support what she's done?!" Ingrid asked.

"Because she's _right_. The Archbishop is a monster; I saw it myself. She's a beast that treats Fódlan and its people like her playthings, soaking up their reverence and crushing their dissent. None of our lives have any meaning to her."

I started laughing—a wild, cackling thing that took on a life of its own. As if Edelgard cared one whit about anything but herself and her lust for power. She'd stepped on the neck of her own mother to begin this climb.

"Something to say, _boar?_ "

I looked him the eye and spat. "As if I would waste my breath."

"Rhea's conscripted students to fight for her," he said. "She has a world-famous order of knights and the body of an ancient dragon, but she's throwing kids as young as fifteen on the front lines. You all right with that?"

I snorted. " _You_ went to war at fifteen."

"I was a squire; I had a set role and I knew what I was getting into. And I didn't fight on the fucking front. Some of these Alliance brats still think battle is a logic puzzle, a hypothetical diversion to test their skills. They have no idea what's coming."

"And if they die," I growled, "it will be the Empire that killed them. Not the Church."

"So underage human shields are fine with you now, and it's the other side's fault for trying to take down a tyrannical hell-beast." He put a hand on his scabbard. "Noted. Get the fuck out of here while I still have a mind to let you go."

The others pulled me up off my feet to make it harder for me to fight them, then dragged me away from my prey while I struggled. I didn't understand why at the time. I could have taken him easily myself, even without a weapon, but _five_ of us? Why would we ever retreat from this traitor?

In retrospect, I suppose they had no wish to see me tear an old friend apart while they watched. No matter his crimes.

I was still howling while they hauled me off. " _I'll kill you, Felix!_ " I yelled. "I'll curse your name off every noble register in Faerghus and leave your corpse for the crows! Do you hear me?!"

The grim look he gave me while they carried me away told me he did.

* * *

I threw my lance aside and fell to my knees, staring at my empty hands. I thought Felix might seize the opportunity to take my head, to end it, but instead the smooth sound of a sword being sheathed glided over the battlefield din.

What would Ferdinand make of that? I lifted my eyes to where he'd waited, but he was gone. I looked at Felix, whose attention was suddenly well overhead, hand back on his sword grip. I followed his gaze to find a wyvern, barely discernable against the dark sky, darting side to side like a bat in the face of a golem that had rolled up behind us. I scrambled to my feet and jumped back as a bolt of light missed Ferdinand and came crashing down on where I'd knelt.

Another bolt fell, then another, until finally the mechanical monstrosity tired of trying to swat a fly with a needle and instead moved to crush it with its hands. Ferdinand was able to drag his mount mostly out of the way, but the end of one of its wings got caught between the metal palms and tore, hideously, snapping its hollow bones as it tried to wrench itself loose. Blood rained from the wound. The wing came free eventually, but there was no way it could fly anymore, and when the golem batted them out of the sky, they kept falling.

There was nothing Ferdinand could do, and he screamed as he plunged to his death. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard, even in my nightmares. He was alive, healthy, uninjured… and had to face the certainty that he couldn't be saved.

The golem now set its sights on Felix and me. It couldn't recognize friend from foe, only targets to be disposed of. I grabbed my lance off the ground and ran toward it.

"Go and help him!" I shouted.

"Don't be stupid!" Felix said back. "A fall like that—there's no way he survived!"

"Just go!" I bashed my lance into the barrier around the golem's legs. It was already cracked in places and gave way easily under the power of a relic. As usual, Felix ignored my orders and charged up my left side, shattering the last of the barrier walls until it overloaded and the golem collapsed at the waist.

That didn't stop it from moving. It rolled madly back and forth over the mud, completely out of control, until its wheels caught on something—a rock, a dropped shield, a depression in the ground—and tipped it forward on top of us.

It was too big to escape; there wasn't time to run. We threw up our relics to catch its weight as it fell, right into the mouth of the lion on its breastplate: the Aegis Shield bore its bulk while Areadbhar offset its momentum. I roared and forced all of my power into the lance tip to drive it back, but it was too heavy. Once the relics wore out, we'd be crushed.

I could hold it just long enough for him to escape. All the death, the monsters, this disgusting bloody mess of a battlefield… it was my fault. If I could save just one person…

Just like I'd saved Dedue once, and preserved my own soul a little longer.

"Go, Felix," I said.

" _Shut up_."

"Get out of here!" I braced the golem's weight on Areadbhar's shaft and one leg, hauled the other leg up, and kicked him away as hard as I could. With all of his force focused upward instead of on me, he flew like a ragdoll, hitting the ground several lengths away and tumbling clear of the golem.

" _Dimitri!_ " he yelled, enraged as I'd ever heard him.

"Please," I said, though I wasn't sure he could hear. "Protect our people. Make sure something of Faerghus survives."

The light in Areadbhar shattered with a blinding flash, and I fell to darkness beneath the golem's metal frame.


	3. Chapter 3

Two years after the fall of Garreg Mach, there was a winter night like any other in Fhirdiad… bone-chilling and lonely, empty but for my never-ending nightmare. Since coming home, I'd piled my bed with furs, and when I did sleep, I slept in them naked like a barbarian. I recoiled at the feel of silk sheets, at velvet and gold, propriety and politeness, all the trappings of royalty in a civilized society. It unsettled me like an ill-fitting skin.

I'd tried to wear it when we left for the Officer's Academy. I cut my hair, buttoned my collar, practiced forcing my grimace into a smile. I said all the right things, spoke formally, ate delicately. Tried to be friendly, to put people at ease around me. Felix saw through it, of course, and Dedue had always known, but everyone else was fooled for a while. Even I believed, sometimes, that I could become a proper prince if I worked hard enough to deny myself.

Edelgard had cloaked herself in that same civility to hide her ill intent. Perhaps that was why the falseness of it all was newly offensive. I wanted nothing to do with it anymore. I only claimed the crown as a tool to stand against her—if not for that, my incompetent uncle could have choked himself with it for all I cared.

It was a cruel irony, how that woman's betrayal had brought me a twisted version of everything I'd ever wanted: knowledge of who had orchestrated the tragedy, a unified aristocracy, Gustave and Cassandra both back in Fhirdiad. Through her war, she'd pressed me into form, not a polished sham of a prince but a savage and bitter man.

The only sympathy I had left was for the people, those who would be victims of the Empire's conquest, and for that I did try to rule well. Keep everyone fed, the towns in good repair, the noble houses in line. I thought Rhea would be more help with that than she was, given her years building and managing a thousand-year-old religion, but she brooded uselessly about the halls even more than I did, muttering ancient curses. She did assign me Seteth, who, without a monastery to administer, was hungry for the daily satisfaction that tedium could bring. I let him have as much as he wanted. It was a tremendous relief.

Still, there was a part of me that knew I didn't belong there. I was born in that castle and had lived there all my life, but it felt like a foreign thing that had been forced on me. I was made for the dark and the wild, for sleeping outdoors and eating what I killed. Even before the tragedy, I always felt more at peace running through the woods with a heavy boulder than learning governance, scripture, or how to hold a fork so that everyone knew you had good breeding.

After the tragedy, of course, I couldn't even find peace in sleep. On the nights I couldn't hold off the need, it was always the same: fire in the caravan tents, horses screaming, friends and soldiers dying. The taste of ash and burning flesh on the air. Running up to where my father was fighting only to see his head sliced clean off, to watch it roll across the ground and land at my feet.

It turned to look at me, snarling, eyes wide. "You did this."

_No, Father, how could I…?_

But I looked down and there was a sword in my hands, black with his blood, the same as what flowed from his mouth and rushed out of his severed neck.

_No! No—I didn't!_

"Avenge us," it said, eyes rolling back. "Slay the one who killed us."

But that would mean… I…

Before I could point the sword at my own throat, I was blanketed by an unfamiliar weight that rested on my shoulder. I was frightened at first—I couldn't move—but soon came to realize that the pressure was a balm, that it was enveloping me, keeping me safe.

A warm voice joined it. "You're all right," it said. "I'm here."

For the first time, I believed it.

The dissonance of that thought startled me awake, as if my whole body rejected the possibility that I could ever be _all right_ , and I opened my eyes to find Dedue crouching beside the bed. He was holding my shoulder, gripping it firmly in his big, heavy hand, and a fresh candle flickered on the side table. It was… unexpected, but I wasn't afraid. Just like the dream, his touch was grounding, giving my nerves something to focus on.

"Dedue," I said softly.

He withdrew his hand—I almost moaned in protest—and rose from the floor to bow his head to me. "Your Majesty."

"What are you doing here?"

"I heard—" He shook his head to dismiss that thought, then tipped his chin to indicate the candle. "I came to check on you. To make sure you were resting. But you were… suffering."

I swept a hand over my face and rubbed my eyes. He wasn't wrong, but I didn't want him to worry for me more than he already did.

"If you'll permit me," he said, "would you… like to try something? It may help."

 _As long as you put your hands on me again_ , I thought, but I behaved and stayed silent. It wouldn't be right to lay my feelings on him along with everything else.

I nodded, and my throat immediately went dry as he placed his knee on the bed.

He sighed. "My sister, she… felt everything deeply. Everything—bright colors, noise, the taste of food, her clothes. Even the very air, sometimes, would be too harsh for her to bear. She was a delicate thing blown into a fury by the storm of the world, without anything to anchor her."

Surely I was not the same as that.

"So," he continued, "whenever something set her off, my mother would lend her weight to settle her. Hold her tightly, or press her into a heavy cushion. It worked, most of the time. Eventually my father made her a blanket woven with chainmail that she could bundle herself in whenever she liked. I don't have one here, but…"

"I understand," I said. "Please."

He covered me with a layer of furs, then carefully leaned his bent leg across my thighs, keeping the other on the floor. He held my shoulders in both hands, pressing his palms against my collarbones, and eased his weight forward until I felt it beneath my skin. I sighed and went slack as all the tension flooded out of me.

My jaw moved, but I couldn't think of anything to say. There was so much I wanted to tell him, but I felt so peaceful, so relaxed, and words were blunt and imprecise tools that would mar it with scratches. Especially when the things I most wanted to say, things like _stay with me_ and _love me_ and _cover me with your body_ , would change from soft entreaties to frightful orders coming from a king.

I settled on this: "What would I do without you, Dedue?"

"You would _live_ ," he insisted. "And be just fine."

I doubted that very much.

I let my hands fall lightly on his wrists and shut my eyes, listened to the fire guttering in the hearth, the wind outside the walls, the sound of his breathing. After a moment, when I opened them again, he was staring away from me into the corner, his brow creased with pain.

"What…?"

He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. Perhaps he was thinking of his family.

I lifted my hand and closed it on his shoulder, trying to impart the same calming warmth he'd given me. Instead he flinched, and when I twisted my hips under him to sit up, he groaned. "Don't—"

My eyes flew open wide.

"This was a mistake," he said, though his grip on me stayed firm. "This is improper. I—"

"Shh." I dragged my fingers back through his hair and down his cheek. "So am I."

Finally he looked at me; his smoky green gaze locked with mine. We stayed like that for a long time, breathing against each other. Words again would fall short, so I tried to convey all my devotion in silence, in the rise and fall of my chest, my thumb brushing over his lip, my open, panting mouth.

All at once, desire overwhelmed his control and he fell on me, crushed his mouth into mine, dug his fingers into my skin. I growled and met him with equal hunger, holding him down with my legs, scraping his tongue with my teeth, delighting in how good it felt to have his body flattening me into the bed.

 _Yes_ , I thought. _Take me, squash me, grind me into powder so I never have to feel anything else ever again…_

* * *

With the golem, I… very nearly didn't.

I wasn't unconscious for very long, but once I woke, it took me a moment to accept that I was still alive and not trapped in some black void of the unknown. I felt my way along the muddy ground and cut my glove on a sheared edge of metal. From there, I was able to figure out what had happened: when Areadbhar gave out, its last burst of energy must have blown a hole in the golem's chest. When it fell on me, I ended up inside it, and something in its guts had come loose and knocked me out rather than hitting me with its full weight.

Now that my relic's power was exhausted, I would have to rely on my own strength to get out. Eventually I found the side of its torso and bashed it out with the shaft of my lance until the metal stretched and thinned, and I was able to punch through and peel out a doorway.

When I emerged onto the battlefield, it was dark and the rain had stopped. Felix and the Imperial Army were nowhere to be seen. No one remained to confirm my death. It seemed I was the only living thing left on the Tailtean Plains.

I staggered out toward the east, where the Imperials had gone. I felt sick and my vision swam. Adrenaline had powered me through my escape, but now the effects of my head injury were coming clear. I dropped to my knees to catch my breath.

What would I do now? Chase the Imperials to Fhirdiad when I could barely walk? Hide in the woods for a few years, recover, and strike at the occupying army when they least expected it? Without my seat of power or the rush of battle to carry me, there seemed little point to it anymore. But I couldn't let it go. I would be dishonoring everyone who died if I stopped now, without at least speaking to Edelgard face to face.

Instead of standing up again, I crawled, the lowest of the low. I scrabbled over mud and rock, dismembered limbs, broken swords. Eventually I came to the river, the branch that separated the east bank from the rest of the plains. The east bank… where the whole mess with the Crest Stones had started. Where Rhea had revealed her craven and self-serving nature.

I stood up just long enough to cross the water before falling back on my hands. How long could I keep going like this? I had to—

Something stirred under my hand and I jerked it back. A fibrous, sickly yellow tendril twitching on the ground. I blinked my eyes and finally made out its shape—the Lance of Ruin.

Sylvain.

I dragged myself up to look at him. His face was turned to the side and covered in bloodied mud, but the ends of his hair were still recognizable, proud and red. He had sunk deep into the ground, and his armor was caved in in places… something had trampled him to death, either a monster, or a golem, or a charging army. What a hopeless way to die.

I touched his jaw, one of the only parts of him that was still whole. "Sylvain… I'm so sorry." It was disgustingly inadequate for all the words I owed him.

I buried him with my hands, picked up clods of mud and laid them over his body. Even after he disappeared from sight, I kept going, building a cairn that would be easily visible on the landscape. When it was finished, I plunged the Lance of Ruin into the ground at his head to mark his resting place. If the Margrave survived, he would know where his son was laid.

While I stood vigil, seeing the lance made me remember something. When the Black Eagle House went to Faerghus to subdue Miklan, it was said that the black beast he'd become dissipated when he died, leaving his human corpse behind as if it had never happened. Even his armor and clothing were unchanged. Indeed, as I crawled across the battlefield, I'd seen no monster carcasses—only human. That meant Dedue's untouched body was out there somewhere.

I had to find him before I did anything else.

I made my way north along the river, at times walking, at times stumbling, dragging myself along with the broken Areadbhar like a walking stick. My head injury throbbed with pain, but it was a welcome change from the tension headache I'd carried around all these years. I couldn't hear my father's voice at all.

Eventually I came over a rise and saw the north bank, where Dedue had made his last stand. Bodies piled up along the crossing, visible in the moonlight between clouds, indistinguishable but for the fact that they were all wearing Kingdom armor. The Empire had recovered their dead before departing.

Was Dedue still there?

As I clambered down, a pinprick of red light on the horizon irritated my vision, making me wince. It took me a moment to realize that it was really there, not an artifact of my injury. A glowing red mark, like a signal fire, beckoning.

A Crest Stone.

I forced the nausea aside and ran, splashing across the shoal, pushing through to the other side until I could make out a massive, dark shape on the landscape. A huge demonic beast, laid out on its side, its steel helm cracked just enough to let the stone's light shine through.

It was Dedue, it had to be. But if his monstrous form was still intact, that meant… he was still alive. And somewhere inside it, just like Miklan, his human body was trapped, whole, waiting. If it could be extracted in death, maybe—

"Oh, Dedue…"

He was alive, _alive_ , and that meant all wasn't lost. Gratitude overcame me; I fell to the ground and sobbed.

_Goddess, Blessed Mother, thank you for this mercy._

The beast's throat rumbled as it breathed, like a lion's, and the wind that came out of its mouth stank of fire and death. I was moved to touch its skin. I took off my glove and stroked my hand over its arm—it burned hot, leathery and coarse, the striations on its skin thick and articulated like binding straps. It seemed… painful, to have a body like that. It must have been agony.

 _Does it hurt you, Dedue?_ I wondered. _Can you feel that I'm here?_

The Crest Stone was just sitting there in its brow, exposed but for the helm. If I could prise it out somehow—

The beast's head shifted, and it drew in a sharp, snorting breath. In an instant, it had drawn itself up and jumped to its feet, quaking the ground beneath us. It moved unnaturally fast for something so huge.

It reared back and roared down at me; its breath blew back my hair and the tears off my face. It was coming, its killing intent heavy in every step. My body was clammy with primal and unconscious fear, but I would not run.

 _It's all right_ , I thought, staring into its bottomless open maw. _It's all right. It's me._

I didn't know, of course, if Dedue and the beast were one and the same. The beast's consciousness might have come from somewhere else, from some hellish beyond, or the stone itself. It could have killed me without remorse, using the body of my beloved as a vessel.

Its huge fist snatched me up off the ground and dragged me up into the air. A fresh wave of nausea washed over me as I dangled helplessly. I needed to think clearly, but it was impossible—my brain was bruised, and the beast's hot breath curdled my blood. Huge, bulbous growths on its neck swelled and oozed pus as it clamped down on me. I started to vomit again, but nothing came, and my chest seized with dry heaves as I writhed in its grip.

It squeezed; its thumb-talon pressed against my throat. My breastplate started to buckle. I was going to die.

_No, I can't—I can't, I have to help you—_

I tossed my shoulders to make room and brought my arms up to block the talon. I called on everything I had to try to force its fist open, to stave off my death so I could stave off his.

But he fought me. He fought me, he tried to wring the life out of me, and when he closed his other hand around me, the pressure made my body slacken and my mind go blank.

"Dedue," I rasped. "Please… please let me save you."

I shut my eyes and focused on breathing, stroked my hand over where the talon joined the skin of his thumb.

"But if you can't… I…" I sighed. "I'm glad I could die with you like this."

The tension went out of its fist, and I sucked air into my lungs. It lifted me up to sniff my hair, then, perhaps liking what it found there, opened its hand and started to prod at me with its fingers, like a bear investigating its prey.

Or perhaps… like a lover, trying to remember.

When the edge of its talon grazed over my lips, renewed hope welled up inside me.

"It is you…" My throat ached, but I was smiling. "Dedue."

We stayed like that for a while, just breathing. The beast had no eyes to stare into, but it was just like before, in my bed of furs, when we shared all we could in silence before we made love for the first time.

I would get him back. If I had to crawl and bleed and die to do it, I—

"Dimitri!"

Someone called to me from the ground—a woman's voice. I craned my head to look down. I was so high up, it made my stomach turn to water, but I recognized the figure standing there.

"Mercedes…?"

Her habit was gone and her dress was filthy and torn, but she seemed to be all right. She had survived, somehow. I hadn't even known she was on the battlefield.

"Oh, just—just hold on!" she cried, fumbling through a shoulder bag for one of her spellbooks. "I—I'll—"

"No!" I called back, and when the beast stirred I put a firm hand on its thumb to steady it. "It's all right—it's Dedue! Don't hurt him!"

"It's… w-what…?"

I turned up to face the beast's muzzle again, at where I imagined its eyes might be. "Listen, can you—can you put me down? Do you understand me?"

It growled out a threat and pulled me in closer, holding me against its throat. I winced as its skin scorched my cheek. Now that he knew me, that I belonged to him, he wasn't going to let me go.

"No, she's not going to hurt me. It's Mercedes. You remember Mercedes, right?"

He snorted dubiously, but lowered his hand. He dropped me a few feet from the ground—unintentionally, I assumed; how could he judge distance without eyes?—and stepped back, grumbling.

Mercedes rushed up to me, obviously distraught. "Oh, Goddess—are you all right?"

"No, I—" I put a hand to my head; everything was swimming again. "I think I'm… concussed, actually…"

"Goodness! Here—lie down and hold still, and I—I'll do what I can."

I eased back onto the ground while she knelt at my head and laid her hands over me. High above, a giant tail swooped over us as the beast turned and stalked away, perhaps looking for food.

My mind cleared as the contusion healed. How was I going to keep Dedue safe long enough to find out how to return him to normal? I could hardly hitch him to a post outside a library. I didn't have any fortresses left to hide him in, either. Arianrhod was big enough, but it had turned to dust.

"Dimitri, you're bleeding…"

I raised my head enough to look down. The metal of my breastplate was dented in at a sharp angle from the beast's grip and had cut into my skin. I hadn't even noticed. I reached down to unbuckle it and tore it free. I could pound it back into shape later.

Another thing I'd have to account for… how to keep him from killing one of us, or anyone else, intentionally or not.

Mercedes bit her lip while she peeled my shirt up to get a look at the wound. "Why would Dedue do this to himself?"

At first I'd thought it was because he'd given up, or because he didn't believe in me. Then, after what Felix said, I thought he was trying to prevent me from going mad with bloodlust, or at least avoid having to witness it himself. But, now that I had a clear head, neither of those seemed quite right.

"I don't know," I admitted.

"I thought I knew him, but I just can't wrap my mind around it." She shook her head, and her hands warmed with healing magic. "He must have been desperate. He was always so proud to stand at your side."

 _With sheep's wool in his ears_ , I thought.

"Were you there when the other soldiers changed?" I asked.

"Yes. Goddess, it was horrible to watch, and they all looked so eager, so excited—it broke my heart."

"Dedue instigated it. He and Sylvain." I grimaced. "Sylvain is… I… I buried him. Out there."

I heard her breath catch. She'd always thought better of Sylvain than the others did. Now that his life was cut short, he'd never be able to rise to meet her good opinion.

After taking a moment to collect herself, she spoke again. "Well, one thing I know for sure, Dimitri… Dedue loved you with all his heart." She smiled at the wide-eyed look I gave her. "Oh, he didn't say anything, I could just tell. I think if he wanted to offer up his life, it must have been for that. What else could it be?"

"It's not what I wanted," I muttered.

She looked down at her hands. "Yes. Sometimes… we hurt the ones we love when we think we're doing right by them. Sometimes we hurt them very badly."

Ah. "You met your brother out there."

She startled at that, which wasn't surprising. Lately I had not been the type to pay attention to anyone's personal concerns.

"Yes," she said. "He looked so sad when he saw me, but I couldn't get him to come with me. He just ran away."

I looked over to see where the beast had gone. Its back was to us, blotting out the Crest Stone's light, but it looked like its tail was twitching as it bent forward. Probably eating the meat off something dead. Dedue would be horrified if he were here to see this.

Perhaps he _was_ horrified, trapped beneath its burning skin, raging against its instincts, unable to break through.

"You'll get another chance," I told her.

She looked up. "What do you mean?"

I sat up, shaking the fog out of my head. "We're taking Dedue to Fhirdiad."

"To Fhirdiad? Why? The Imperial Army will be there!"

"Exactly. Edelgard and her accomplices know more about tampering with demonic beasts than anyone." I clenched my fist. "I'll _make_ them give him back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Weighted or compression therapy should only be applied by a professional or under the guidance of one. This story is for entertainment only and should not be read as endorsing or providing accurate information on any therapeutic treatment.


	4. Chapter 4

It was easier said than done, and Mercedes's face reflected her doubts. I couldn't say I didn't share them.

"Do you really think we can get him all the way to Fhirdiad?" she asked.

I had to. There was no other way.

"I don't know," I said. "He can understand some of what I say, but I don't know how well. I can't tell how much of what's in there is really Dedue… or, if he is there, how well and how long his mind can hold together."

I couldn't even get him to heed my wishes when he was human, most of the time.

"But…" I sighed. "He knows me. I believe that."

She put a hand on my arm. "Then we'll do it."

 _Bless you, Mercedes_ , I thought. _I'm glad you survived_.

Dedue, or the beast that encased him, suddenly looked up, dragging a trail of fire through the night with his Crest Stone. He faced south, over the battlefield, and opened his mouth in a rumbling growl.

"He sees something," she said. "Something's coming."

I grabbed Areadbar off the ground, dead though it was, and we ran to the edge of the river to see if we could spot what he'd sensed. Far from the crossing, where all the bodies were piled, there was a patch of rocks overlooking the north bank, just big enough for us to crouch behind and not be seen.

The ground shook beneath our feet, and I realized that Dedue had started to follow us once he noticed I was on the move. An encouraging sign for our journey, and I felt a little warm under the ribs. Even as a beast, he still wanted to be near me.

It took a moment for us to make anything out in the darkness. Eventually, tiny spots of flame emerged—a pair of torches, entering the battlefield from the canyon. It could have been common scavengers looking for armor and weapons to poach, but I had an uneasy feeling.

"H-hey… is someone there?"

Mercedes and I jumped back, startled. It was a small, pained voice, barely above a whisper, lilting up from the other side of the rocks. I crept carefully around them, keeping Mercedes behind me, until we cleared the edge and found someone crumpled in the gap beside an injured wyvern.

"Oh!" Mercedes gasped. "Ferdinand!"

So it was. He was caked in blood and dirt, but even in the weak moonlight, his long hair and red jacket were unmistakable. He was breathing hard and sweating. I couldn't tell if his back was broken, but his legs tangled under him at wrong angles like a misassembled doll. I didn't understand how he wasn't screaming.

"Ah… King Dimitri," he rasped, struggling to sit up straighter until he cringed and fell back. "Are you here to kill me? Then please… quickly…"

"Of course not!" Mercedes insisted, rushing to his side. "We're going to help you."

"Wait, Mercedes—" I threw out my arms to block her from the approaching torches. "If you use magic here, whoever's coming will see us."

A red light bobbed overhead. Dedue's Crest Stone.

I clambered back over the rocks and hissed to get his attention. He turned his head toward me with a rumble of air, then bent down to nudge my cheek affectionately with his knuckle. It… made me happier than it had a right to. I should have been more disturbed by how easy it was to accept all of this.

I reached up to grasp his fingertip between both hands. "Would you… come this way?"

I led him slowly around the rock stand, hoping the echoing quake of his footfalls wouldn't reach the torchbearers on the other side of the plains. I turned him around so that he faced away from them and coaxed his head down to hide his Crest Stone from sight.

"There," I said, and stroked what I could reach of his jaw. There was carrion on his breath, and his helm was smeared with gore around the mouth. "Can you sit?"

He went down with a bone-juddering thump that blew back all the loose dirt from the ground. With this, we were completely hidden, and Mercedes could work on healing Ferdinand's injuries. Our own movable mountain.

Ferdinand watched all of this unfold in a daze. "You have a… pet demonic beast?"

I growled, but Mercedes answered for me: "It's Dedue, from the Academy."

"Wha—is that true?" Even through the extreme pain he must have been in, he had the grace to look sympathetic. "Oh, Goddess, I—"

I didn't wish to discuss it, and I ignored the beast's talons picking through my furs and hair as if it were a completely ordinary occurrence. I watched Mercedes light a plume of white magic on her fingers to examine her new patient.

"How on earth did you survive that fall?" I asked.

"Ah, well…" He lifted a shaking hand to pat the wyvern's head. "This old girl took the worst of it. And I have always been… agile. Lucky me."

Sarcasm was deeply unsettling, coming from him.

"All of my elixirs broke in the fall," he went on, nodding at his lap. "Soaked my legs. It numbed the pain for a while, but…" He winced. "Wearing off now…"

"Ferdinand, in order to mend you, we'll have to set all your bones back in the right place first." Mercedes chewed on her lip. "I don't have any more painkillers, so… it's probably going to hurt. A lot."

He clenched his jaw and nodded, leaning his head back against the rock.

"Dimitri, will you help me?"

I got up and tore a square of cloth off my cape. I mashed it up into a ball and held it in front of Ferdinand's face.

"Open your mouth."

Once he did, I shoved the cloth inside, and he bit down.

"Lift him up a little, please, so we can get his legs out from under him."

I picked him up under the arms and raised him by a few inches. Mercedes pulled gingerly at his ankles, drawing them carefully forward against the ground so that his legs lay somewhat straight. They were still obviously broken; one of his thighbones had splintered, distending the skin so it was visible even under his trousers.

She detached all the pieces of his leg armor expertly; the past five years had left her skilled in field medicine. It was a talent she probably did not take any pride in. "Now, if you could… just move each of his bones back into place, one by one, and I'll bind them with faith spells."

I hesitated. This work was too delicate for hands like mine. My power was made for killing; I could shatter him like glass without even trying. "I don't know if I—"

"You can do it," she insisted. "Quickly and in one motion is best."

The thighbone first, then. It was the most obvious break, and all I had to do was jam it back against the rest of itself, not try to line up a joint. I wedged one hand under his leg and held the other over the bone's broken edge.

"Ferdinand, are you ready?" she asked.

He grabbed fistfuls of the dirt beneath us and nodded.

I drove the flat of my hand into his thigh and snapped the bone into place. He howled into his gag; his whole body bucked off the ground. His wyvern, injured and weak as she was, still raised her head at his distress to threaten us, but Dedue growled at her and she went still.

A band of white magic runes wound around Ferdinand's leg and tightened into place beneath the skin. "Keep going, Dimitri," Mercedes called. "Hurry."

I bent his leg at the knee to see where his joints had gone wrong. He wrestled his agony back into a dull moan. I had to wrench the knee, both ankles, even his right hip back into proper alignment. I didn't dare go near his back, though we couldn't be sure he hadn't cracked anything that high up.

After that it was simple straight fractures, which Mercedes could handle herself. I got up to see where our torch-bearing interlopers had gone. It looked like they were heading east, toward the main road to Fhirdiad… and Sylvain's grave.

When I turned back, Mercedes had finished with Ferdinand and was starting to mend the wyvern's wing. He spat out the cloth and groaned. After suffering all that, I wondered if he would ever ride again. Certainly not in the artful, high-skilled way he'd done before. As a student of war, I mourned it.

That, too, was my fault.

Dedue lifted his huge head and sniffed the air. He craned his neck around until he was facing east, mouth open, like he was scenting something.

All at once he roared and jumped to his feet, then took off running down the river to where the torches still burned.

"Wait!" I shouted, but it was futile. One thing Dedue and the beast had in common: once they got an idea in their head, there was no dissuading them.

I felt a tug on my cape and looked down to see Ferdinand, sitting up but struggling not to fall over. He looked terrible, white with pain, sweat pouring down his face.

I frowned. "Should you be doing that?"

"Stop him," he ground out, panting. "Those people are… Those Who Slither in the Dark. The underground organization backing the Empire. They… sweep in after our battles to gather Heroes' Relics."

So that was why they were moving east—the Lance of Ruin.

"Then why should I stop him?" I snarled. "Is it their lives that need sparing… or their usefulness to your Emperor? After all we've done for you, you're still concerned about your war?!"

"You want to bring Dedue back, right?" It was clearly taking all his effort just to stay conscious. "Those men live to experiment on demonic beasts. If anyone will know a way, they will. But they cannot tell you anything if they are _dead_."

I couldn't argue that, and it would be safer than going all the way to Fhirdiad.

"Or they could kill him," he said. "Even with just two of them, they would certainly have the tools."

_Say that first, idiot!_

I snatched my cape out of his grip, grabbed my lance, and took off running down the field. "Mercedes, with me!" I shouted. "Bring your bow!"

"Oh—y-yes!"

She couldn't keep up with me, and I had to slow a few steps so I didn't get too far ahead of her. Once I could make out the shapes of the scavengers, they had already seen Dedue and were grabbing implements out of their cart to subdue him. One looked like a long pole with lightning magic flaring from its end.

"Can you hit the one on the left?" I hissed. "Anywhere that isn't fatal."

She nodded and pulled off to line up her shot while I kept running. The arrow whipped past me and struck him in the arm; he dropped the pole and it rolled harmlessly into the mud. After he fell to his knees in shock, Dedue grabbed him and lifted him high overhead. The draft horses shrilled.

"Wait!" I landed on the other figure and drove her to the ground. "Don't kill him—we need to find out what he knows!"

He ignored me and dangled the masked figure over his open mouth. The man kicked his legs and screamed.

"Dedue!"

The woman wriggled out from under me and shot something at him—it looked like some kind of crossbow. Whatever it fired landed in Dedue's neck and spat out a cage of lightning that caused him to jerk forward and drop his prey. It disappeared as quickly as it had come. The man landed on the ground; something cracked inside him as it broke. His moaning let me know he was still alive.

I wrenched the crossbow out of the woman's hands and tossed it aside before grabbing her by the throat. "You know," I said, "I really only need _one_ of you."

She laughed. "Good luck with _that_ , King of Beasts."

There was a snapping sound, then something like rushing seaform; I tore her plague mask off to find she had ingested some kind of poison. Her bone structure started to liquefy as her face turned purple.

I flung her away and called out for Mercedes. "See to the other one—make sure he doesn't poison himself!"

"It's too late," she said sadly. "He's gone."

I got up to look and found only a bubbling white stain in a black robe.

I swore and kicked at the mud. These Imperial parasites were determined to make everything as difficult as possible, even at the cost of their own lives.

Overhead, Dedue pulled their device out of his neck and hissed, turning on me in what I imagined was irritation.

"Well, don't get mad at me," I scoffed. "You're the one who ran off."

He reared back and roared, blowing my hair back. I gritted my teeth and held firm, bracing my shoulders into the rancid wind.

Then he gave up and lumbered off, and we had to duck to avoid the arc of his tail.

"Dimitri," Mercedes said carefully, wringing her hands. "Are you sure about all this? Is that really Dedue in there?"

I honestly had no idea. "He hasn't killed us yet," I said. "That's something."

But the demonic beasts attending the Imperial Army never attacked them either, did they?

* * *

Just weeks before, Rhea and I had stood on the terrace of the castle in Fhirdiad, surveying our combined army on the parade grounds. Between my soldiers, the Knights of Seiros, and the reserve troops Rodrigue dispatched from Arianrhod before it fell, they made an impressive show of force. Even if we couldn't match the Empire's numbers, I had full faith that our fighting skill was superior and would overcome.

We began to discuss our strategy for Tailtean. It was a dangerous risk, facing the Imperial Army without walls to stand behind, but there was no other choice. Trying to weather a siege here would be a certain loss, and I wouldn't let the citizens come to harm if I could avoid it.

Rhea hummed distantly as she mulled over my plan, staring out over the horizon to the southeast—toward the monastery she'd been unable to recapture, and the goddess-touched professor who'd reappeared there.

"As king," she said, "do you really think it wise to meet them in battle yourself?"

I was surprised she would even ask. It felt like a lifetime since I'd seen her show concern toward anyone, and five years on, it was no secret that our alliance was convenient, opportunistic, and chilling as a Sreng wind. It made me suspicious of her motives in wondering this out loud.

But I swallowed it all down—defeating Edelgard was all that mattered. It wouldn't be long now.

It… was also possible that I'd read Rhea wrong all this time. I knew what it was like to have difficulty showing affection to those I valued.

"No need to worry," I replied, forcing a tight smile. "Even if I fall, the Blaiddyd bloodline will live on."

My left hand clenched into a fist. I was referring to my uncle, living a wasted life at his manor in Itha, but… there was also that phial of my blood she had stashed away, for whatever deranged reason. Did she even remember?

"Hmm… indeed." She turned to look at me with that serene, thousand-year stare that made my skin crawl, and her lip curled up in a smirk. "It may interest you to know that I've been developing something that can help defend the city while we're away. I've nurtured it very carefully these last few years. Would you like to see it?"

I narrowed my eyes, but followed her. If she'd built some sort of dangerous super-weapon in my castle, I certainly wanted to know about it. She should have asked my leave to begin at all, but I'd learned there was no reasoning with her on what courtesies I was owed. She was too far gone.

She led me back through the castle and up the stairs to the royal apartments. I watched with a sinking heart as she pushed open the doors to the rooms she'd been occupying and gestured me inside.

The king's chambers, which I had not entered since my father died.

I stepped carefully as I proceeded forward, as if his corpse might jump out to attack me from any unexamined shadow. I could barely remember, but it didn't look like much had changed. The furniture was untouched—most of it hadn't even been dusted—the curtains and rugs a little duller, the paintings covered with cloth. Only the candles were new, and all freshly lit, giving the rooms a foreboding tremor as they flickered.

This whole place would go up in flames if she weren't careful.

My efforts to avoid looking around too much were rescued by a strange glass case at the far end of the bedroom, just beside the bay windows that overlooked the city. It was about the size of a sarcophagus—transparent, but it glowed a pale rosy pink, too bright to make out what was inside from across the room. It had certainly not been there in my father's time.

This must have been what she wanted me to see. I looked back at her and she smiled, nodding me forward.

When I peered over it, I wasn't sure what I was seeing at first, but it was almost like… animal tissue, some poor creature turned inside out and lit from within. Once my eyes adjusted, I made out a lizard-shaped figure, like a dragon but man-sized, swallowed up by soft membranes and ropes of naked fascia that connected it to the glass like spidersilk. The whole casing steamed with moisture. It looked like something being born, like the inside of a cocoon.

But… whatever it was, it was clearly dead. It was gray and bloodless; its jaws hung open and slack. No breathing moved its chest, and no heartbeat stirred the skin of its neck.

"What do you think?" she asked, appearing at my side. "Is he not beautiful?"

I… pitied her. I too had put my faith and trust in things that were not alive, seen the faces of my beloved dead and believed they would lead me to salvation. She needed help, and I was not the one to give it.

"Yes," I said carefully. "Please wait here. I'll go and get Catherine."

She reached for me suddenly, grazing her cold fingers over my cheek. "Don't go…"

When I jumped back, her nails scratched my skin.

"Stay here with me," she said. "Like Wilhelm used to…"

I ran the hell out of there, with her simpering laugh echoing in my ears. I didn't stop until I was in my own chambers with the door bolted, where I fell to my hands and knees on the flagstones and shuddered.

 _A few more days,_ I thought. _Just a few more days…_

* * *

Even after the lightning flash, the roaring beast, the dissolving bodies of their masters, the torchbearers' horses were still there waiting, along with their cart. They must have been accustomed to such horrors.

The cart was loaded with a number of things beyond occult weapons. Most interesting to me was the chest full of umbral ore, along with a set of hammers and an anvil, brought along to repair the relics they collected. I was no weapon smith, had cracked an anvil in half the one time I attempted it, but I'd seen Ferdinand tinkering around in the monastery before. Perhaps he'd be willing to repair my lance in gratitude for his life… if he could still bear his own weight well enough to swing a hammer.

That would mean taking him with us to Fhirdiad, but I had to admit it was probably the best course anyway. I could offer him in trade for safe passage and information to help Dedue.

"Disgusting pig," came my father's voice. "Where is your pride? You would spare an Imperial general just to save a vassal? Do you mourn his service or his cock?"

Apparently Mercedes's good work healing my injured brain had also restored his abuse. Splendid.

I pushed it aside and refocused on investigating the cart. It also carried further implements for subduing demonic beasts: more lightning-tipped weapons, electrified chain, and something that unfolded into a metal collar seeping dark magic along its inner rim.

"Maybe… we should use some of this," Mercedes suggested.

I thought of having to goad Dedue along with the end of that pole and shuddered. "No."

But I would have to get his attention in order to have him follow us again.

I put everything back in the cart and left to retrieve him. He was standing at the edge of the forest, facing east. Toward where the Imperial Army had gone.

"Do you want to follow them?" I asked.

He turned his long neck to look at me and rumbled agreement. Or perhaps he was still annoyed with me; it was impossible to tell.

A cold wind blew through the trees, settling me with bracing chill. I couldn't smell it, but I could imagine it: the fresh tang of spring growth, the budding soil, the beating hearts of birds and deer and other creatures.

Going to Fhirdiad to find a solution for Dedue wasn't just uncertain, it was dangerous. If the Church couldn't hold the castle—and I couldn't imagine how they would, with just themselves and the meager guard I'd left behind—we would be entering occupied territory. If the rearguard killed us before we could get to anyone who knew or cared who Ferdinand was… or, to be fair, if they simply overwhelmed Mercedes and me and _took_ him… it would all have been for nothing.

It wasn't the first time in those five years that I considered leaving it all behind. Just discard what was left of my plate armor and run into the woods, never to return. Leave the laws and the taxes, the famines and political intrigues to those who were better suited. I was meant to live a different life.

I had heard rumors that even Crest-bearers could be transformed by their relics, given time. Cassandra had mentioned it to me once when we were sparring, said that every time Thunderbrand flared to life in her hands, she felt like it was taking something from her. I had never felt that with Areadbhar, but I also hadn't been using it as long, and… my equilibrium was perhaps not as steady as hers to begin with. It was difficult to perceive new ripples in a wind-tossed sea.

If I turned into a beast, would I even notice a difference?

What if I stripped off my gloves and held Areadbhar's Crest Stone in my hands, cut my thumb on the edge of the gash that Rhea left behind? After enough exposure, perhaps it would take me. Then Dedue and I could run away together, monsters in the wild, battling hunters and gobbling up any Imperial interlopers we came across. A simple, satisfying life, freed from the concerns of politics and human strife.

But no. Even if it worked on me, I wouldn't be able to keep my promise. It would take a king to restore Duscur, not a demonic beast.

"Come with me," I said. "Please."

He stomped over to me and bent his head to give me a sniff. Once this satisfied him, he gave a kind of trilling growl—almost conversational—and waited for me to move so he could follow.

Perhaps Mercedes was right and this wasn't Dedue at all. Perhaps the beast could just tell by scent that I was its mate, and everything flowed down from that.

In the end, it didn't matter. I would save him either way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ferdinand's speaking cadence is so much better read aloud (at least in English). It sounds great, but looks stilted and awkward written out on the page. In conclusion, please imagine Billy Kametz reading all my dialogue forever, thank you.

We took the cart back to where Ferdinand waited. He had finally passed out, and the wyvern—who looked like she was doing just fine—curled around him like a mother cat, licking his face with her pointed tongue. She let us load him into the cart under her watchful eye, then took off into the air as we finally made our way off the battlefield.

"Will he walk again?" I asked.

Mercedes shook her head. "I don't know. I wish I had found him sooner. Nerve work is so delicate—you really need medical knowledge to manage it well, and he'd been sitting there all twisted up for so long. If Professor Manuela were here, maybe…"

Manuela was also supporting the Empire. Another reason to get him to Fhirdiad.

Rather than follow the Imperial Army to the main road, we headed directly for the capital in a straight line. It was harder terrain, but it would shave some time off the journey and give us forest cover as we traveled. Not to mention we wouldn't run into any towns with Dedue along. Still, it was slow going, and while Mercedes drove the horses, I kept watch out the back to make sure he was still following. His Crest Stone bobbed in and out of the trees; his footfalls shook the cart's wheels even at a distance.

"He'll need to rest at some point," she said. "A body that big can't keep up its energy for long."

She was right about that. I had to allow that she was probably tired, too—there was no hint of dawn yet, but it was certainly into the morning hours. And who knew how far the horses had traveled that day.

We decided to stop as soon as we found thicker woods to hide in. I offered to keep watch while she slept, but decided to rouse Ferdinand and explain what was going on so he wouldn't try to leave if I dozed off.

I shook him awake; he blinked bleary eyes at me for a few moments and then moaned when he tried to move his legs.

"Don't do that," I grunted. "You're not healed yet."

"I—ah." He cringed and rubbed out an ache in his forehead. "Yes, I remember now."

He looked around to get his bearings.

"We appear to be in a cart," he said, insightfully. "Where are you taking me?"

"Fhirdiad." I could tell this surprised him. "We're resting the horses now, but should be there by sunset tomorrow."

"Why would you bring me back to the Imperial Army? Am I a hostage?"

I shrugged. "Only if necessary to get us into the city. I have no interest in killing you." _Anymore…_

"And Edelgard?" He was staring at me, but it wasn't sharp or accusing—it almost looked like genuine concern. "Even now, after everything that has happened… do you still believe you can defeat her?"

"You will do it or die screaming," said Father.

"I…" I swallowed. "I want to restore Dedue. That's all. Those, uh…" I tried to remember what he'd called them. "The ones who… do whatever thing. They took poison before I could ask them about it. Fhirdiad is the only other place I know they'll be."

"I see." He pushed himself up on his hands to get into a sitting position. "Then I will not flee."

I wasn't sure if he was trying to be funny.

But on the subject of his injuries and his strange sense of nobility, it reminded me of something.

"You distracted that golem to protect Felix and me, didn't you?"

"Well, I thought it a worthy duel." He sniffed archly. Perhaps for irony. "And… whatever he was saying, it seemed to be reaching you. I could not let that be interrupted."

"Hubert left you to make sure I was _dead_ ," I observed. "Not emotionally weathered."

His brow furrowed and he frowned, looking elsewhere. "Hubert is not always right."

Before I could ask further, Dedue approached the cart and grumbled at me. He wasn't raging like before, but it was clear he wanted to be heard.

"What is it?" I asked, stupidly. As if he could answer.

He grabbed me roughly out of the cart and held me aloft in his fist.

"Hey—!"

Without waiting for further argument, he stomped off into the woods, carrying me with him.

I worked one of my arms free so I could jab a finger back at Ferdinand. "You! Don't go anywhere. And thank Mercedes properly when she wakes up."

He nodded and waved goodbye, looking bewildered.

Dedue dragged me through the forest, toward what I could not think. I hoped we wouldn't lose our way back to the cart. Still, he was being oddly careful with me—holding me lose enough that I could wriggle and breathe, moving his hand to keep my head away from any branches as he crashed along through the dark.

Eventually we came to a small clearing, surrounding a massive tree that must have been hundreds of years old. He turned his huge body in front of the tree and sat down heavily before leaning back against it, sighing.

He deposited me on his chest, in the crease between the pectoral muscles and his swollen belly. When I tried to get up, he growled and closed his hand over me to push me back down.

I couldn't help but laugh. Of course—even a monstrous Dedue would insist that I sleep.

"Oh," I sighed. "All right…"

I removed what was left of my plate armor—there wasn't much, just the one remaining spaulder and everything below the waist—and tossed it over the side of his body to the ground. I doubted I would actually fall asleep; the heat of his skin was too stifling. But I could make a show of it, at least, if it would make him happy.

He grunted approval and prodded me lazily with his fingers. His talons stroked through my hair and under my chin.

In response, I stroked his belly like a massive, hairless cat. "It's all right. I'm here."

There was strange contentment in this, but… the man I loved was still so far away, buried beneath the surface of this creature. Could I even reach him?

I realized I still hadn't gotten a good look at the beast's face; it was always hidden under that huge helm. He'd been wearing it all day, through battle, our journey, even unconsciousness, and its fasteners fit tight to the skin. It must have hurt him.

"Let me help you," I said, and crawled up to his neck to remove it.

The metal was so deeply embedded in his flesh that it left indentations as I unbuckled the straps and pulled the panels free. I felt a lump in my throat as I ran my hand over them. As if people who turned into demonic beasts didn't suffer enough, they sprang into being having to wear these awful things.

"Dedue…"

_Why did you do this to yourself? Did you stop believing in how strong we were together?_

He scooped me up in his hand and held me against his throat. I rearranged my fur pelt around my neck so I could wedge it in between my cheek and his scalding flesh. It turned out the heat wasn't so unbearable, like this. On a spring night in Faerghus, it was even comforting.

By the time his hand fell away and his breathing deepened, I was starting to feel heavy myself. The rise and fall of his chest and the rumble of air inside his throat were gently hypnotic. And I had long gotten used to the smell of blood and sulfur.

I could almost…

* * *

Two years before, Dedue and I had gone to the south of Faerghus with an army to reinforce our border with the Empire. We shared a tent, which no one questioned—he'd always been fiercely protective—but no one saw how we pushed our bedrolls together when the tent flaps fell, or how I spooned against his naked back when he rolled over to sleep.

I was still aglow from being eagerly fucked, and I pressed lazy kisses into his shoulder. Tomorrow we would fight Count Bergliez, but I wasn't feeling up to sleep.

"Your Majesty," he grumbled, but it was fond. "It's time to rest."

I laughed, then drew back to give him space. "I don't think I will tonight, but… don't let me keep you."

"That is not acceptable."

When he turned to face me, I was expecting to be scolded, but his eyes were creased with serious concern. He traced out the line of my jaw with his fingers, then lifted my chin so I would meet his gaze.

"What is it you see," he asked, "When you dream?"

I didn't wish to discuss it. I pulled away, off the bedroll, and rifled through my things for a waterskin.

"Is it the tragedy? Your father?"

I swung the skin up for a drink, a little too roughly, and had to scrub water off my mouth with the back of my hand. I felt like an idiot child. "I would prefer not to have this conversation with you."

"Why not?" He was up on his knees now, sitting at attention. This was the thing I had most hoped to avoid. "You know that I—"

" _Yes_. You understand. More than anyone could." My head drooped in deep shame. "More than _I_ could. You lost so much more than I did, Dedue—everything, your family, your village, your whole culture. Every person you'd ever known until that day. And yet I'm the one always wailing like an infant, ruled by my grief, torturing myself with false memories every time I close my eyes. Why can't I—"

He gripped me by the shoulders and turned me around to face him. "You are not _weak_ ," he insisted. "You have an illness."

"That is _not_ reassuring."

"It takes more spirit and dedication to climb a mountain with one leg instead of two. And you have done it, many times. How can you not see this?"

I let my head fall on his shoulder, slid my arms around his waist. "Only because you were there."

"You're wrong." I felt his fingers in my hair. "If the day comes when you have to go on alone, you cannot falter. You have the strength in you already. Your survival is more important than anything in this war."

"I wish you wouldn't talk like that. You wouldn't like it if I said the same to you."

"You and I have different roles to fill," he said, and I heard the smile in his voice. "Your Majesty."

"Ugh." I pushed him back until he fell obligingly on the bedroll. "Why can't you just let me love you?"

"You'll have to remake the world first," he said. "But I believe you will. _After_ you get some rest."

So saying, he grasped me by the waist and pulled me into his lap.

"Perhaps I have failed in my duty by not tiring you out enough…"

"Mm," I purred, and rolled my hips under his hands. "I'll let you make it up to me."

Sometimes I did sleep well, after all.

* * *

I woke the next morning to something nudging me in the face. It was rough and leathery, like an old saddle.

No—it was a giant, fibrous knuckle.

I startled awake, and the events of the past day tumbled into place. Dedue's sacrifice. Our defeat at Tailtean. Felix's and my battle with the golem. Traveling with Mercedes and Ferdinand, the Imperial general we'd taken not-quite-hostage. And…

Somehow I had fallen asleep cuddled up against the neck of a demonic beast.

Far below, someone cleared their throat delicately, and I looked over Dedue's massive body to find Mercedes standing on the ground, waiting for me. She was waging a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful battle to smother a smile.

"I think, um…" She coughed into her hand. "I think it's time we got back on the road."

"Yes… of course."

I slid down his side like a snowdrift and landed in a crouch. I set about retrieving all my armor off the ground so I didn't have to meet her gaze.

"Oh, don't be embarrassed," she whispered. "I thought it was very sweet. And you look so rested!"

I sighed. "Please _don't_ mention it."

The three of us returned to find Ferdinand, sitting up in the cart and giving pets to his wyvern, which sat just alongside. When he looked up and saw me, he gave me the same look of impish curiosity that Mercedes did. I sat up front to drive the horses so I wouldn't have to look at them.

I passed the next several minutes in silence while they chattered away like old friends. I didn't understand what they were so cheerful about. We were still in the middle of a war, I had all but lost the Kingdom to history already, and even the promise of help for Dedue in Fhirdiad was only theoretical. It was just an idea I'd had, a vain hope, and far from certain. If I crossed the city walls, the most likely salvation I'd find was an axe through my neck. Deposed kings didn't live to bargain.

Finally, Ferdinand turned to look at my hunched back. He'd regained some range of motion in his waist, at least. "So… you and Dedue?"

I grunted in response. As ever, he had a way of rubbing salt in a wound while making it sound like honey.

"Have you been together since the Academy?"

"No," I said, though I didn't know why I bothered. "Three years."

It seemed like so much less than that, knowing how close we had come to losing it all. How close we still were.

"I see—I did not mean to assume. You were so inseparable in those days."

Inseparable… yes.

I didn't know why I was so hostile to this conversation. Hadn't I always been proud of my relationship with Dedue, and annoyed with him for always trying to hide it?

Perhaps it was because it was tactless, talking about his private life while he lumbered alongside us, unable to understand and possibly even dead. Perhaps it was… that I was disgusted with myself for my conduct the previous night. Lying in comfort against this monster that might not have been Dedue at all, just the beast that swallowed him whole. It was disrespectful to assume they were the same.

Perhaps it was because Mercedes and Ferdinand both seemed to be treating his safe return as a foregone conclusion, and I couldn't allow myself to indulge the thought.

"I suspect it is pleasant," Ferdinand said, with a wistful note, "to be in love with someone you do not have to fight with all the time."

I thought of looking down on the battlefield at Tailtean. Being held back to the rear. Watching helplessly as the man I loved turned himself into a monster.

"We fought about some things," I said.

A beat went by before something occurred to me.

"Wait, who are you with?" I asked, turning around. There hadn't been anyone obvious at the Academy, but I was notoriously oblivious to such things. "… Edelgard?"

He burst out laughing, then flinched and held his side. "Ahaha… ow…"

"Dimitri, don't make him laugh," Mercedes scolded.

No one had ever said _that_ to me before.

"Heh… no," he said, once he recovered. "Though, a worthy guess, I suppose."

He saw the way I was looking at him and smiled mysteriously.

"Perhaps you will find out. If we survive."

At least mulling over that particular puzzle would give me something to occupy my mind.

Eventually we stopped to water the horses, and Mercedes helped Ferdinand out of the cart to try some muscle exercises. He was clearly unsteady, and had trouble bearing his own weight. It was difficult to watch.

I didn't speak again until sunset, when we were almost within sight of the capital. One last ridge to scale and the turrets of my father's castle would come into view. I was starting to feel sick with worry, not knowing what state we would find it in.

Mercedes had fallen asleep, resting her chin on her hand, but Ferdinand was awake, diligently bending and stretching his knees against a length of chain.

"What will you do when we reach Fhirdiad?" I asked.

If he noticed the dark tone in my voice, he made no sign. "I will help you convince them to restore your companion," he said. "You need not worry."

"And after? Will you rejoin Edelgard?" I leaned over the back of the driver's bench to glare at him. "Work to wrest control of my kingdom away?"

His brow furrowed again as he considered what to say. I suspected I would not like it.

"I mean no offense," he began. "You seem a decent man outside of battle, and after this I hope it will not come to violence, but… I do not think you are fit to rule."

"You _mean no offense?_ "

He continued as if I had not spoken. "Rather than wearing your heart upon your sleeve, it is more like… your armor is strung with hearts, all open and bleeding. Some are yours and some belong to others. The very air must sting them. To wound even one would mean spilling your own blood. A king who carries all of that cannot be effective."

He was still a rude little snot, but I had to admit he had some insight.

"You're saying my caring about others makes me a poor leader?"

"The way you manifest that care? Yes."

I snorted. "And the way Edelgard leads, is it more to your liking?"

"Edelgard is steadfast and decisive, and while she _has_ emotions, she rules outside of them. I believe the Empire will never falter with her at its head, and that this future she speaks of will indeed be a better one. For everyone."

 _Not for the thousands of war dead littering the soil_ , I thought, but I turned back around and didn't respond.

"I do not expect you to agree," he said. "That is why we find ourselves in this war, after all."

 _Find ourselves_ , like Edelgard had not planned and launched a continent-wide offensive with his help.

We were coming up on the ridge. There was only a bare sliver of sun left on the horizon, but it looked like there were clouds of dust being kicked up from the city. The battle was already joined.

When we cleared it, the valley below glowed like a brazier, throwing up thick plumes of smoke, and I howled so furiously that Dedue joined his voice to it in an answering roar.

Fhirdiad was burning.


	6. Chapter 6

Unlike Felix, Ashe came back with us to Faerghus at first. He was the second person I knighted, after Ingrid, and he accepted a post in the castle guard at Fhirdiad serving under Gustave. In the end, it was that very post that unmade his oaths to me, left to wander those dark halls where the mutterings of the Church leaders became increasingly deranged. If he'd gone with Ingrid to join the Fraldarius soldiers, perhaps he wouldn't have turned.

No… instead he would be dead, his bones melted to slag under the ruin of Arianrhod. It was better this way.

He came to me at the castle's training grounds one night, armored and dressed for travel. It was nearly dawn, yet I'd been swinging my lance for hours, trying to hold the nightmares at bay, and my shoulder was hard and heavy as a lead ball. Even Dedue had nodded off in a chair by the door, but came awake as soon as Ashe entered.

Ashe snapped his heels together and bowed. "Your Majesty."

As ever, I didn't feel especially majestic, drenched in sweat and wincing at the strain in my arm as I reached for a drying rag, but I acknowledged him with a nod. "Ashe."

He didn't say anything at first, just glanced over his shoulder at Dedue, then at me. I was bare to the waist while training, and his eyes lingered on the pit of my throat, my heaving chest. There was nothing lustful in his gaze… more he was afraid I might pounce and eat him alive.

I sighed and tried to soften my expression. Ashe was a friend.

"It's late," I offered. "Going somewhere?"

"I…" He swallowed, then tipped his chin up in a bold stance. "I'm leaving Faerghus."

I felt the earth move beneath my feet. Ashe had never shown the barest hint of disloyalty; he held up his knightly vows like his most precious possession before he'd even made them. What could have turned him?

Still, I had to admit it was tremendously brave, telling me this to my face. In my grandfather's time, the punishment for oathbreaking and desertion was death _first_ , then he would deliver the body to their hometown to be dragged through the streets behind a horse. I'd never done it, but I was known for nothing if not ruthless action in the face of betrayal.

I managed to keep my voice even, and when Dedue got up from his chair, I held up a hand so he would stay back. "Why?"

"I can't bear to serve alongside the Church anymore." He shook his head. "I thought I'd forgiven them for killing Lonato—he raised an army, after all—but the more I hear what they say now, all merciless and unforgiving, the more I think he must have been right to stand against them. They sent _kids_ to execute him without a trial, just like Christophe, even though he didn't pose a real threat. They're not righteous. They're fanatics!"

I was not blind to the radicalization of the Church; their invective was beginning to unnerve even me. But the more they stirred each other up, the more it served my purposes in the fight against the Empire, so I left them alone. Not that there was any use talking to Rhea anyway.

But for Ashe, being unable to abide the ones who stole his family away… it was something I could respect.

I didn't bother to suppress a scowl, but I did step away to return my heavy training lance to the rack. His shoulders relaxed visibly. "Why tell me this? You could have ridden off on some errand and no one would have thought anything of it."

"I—I thought if I explained it to you, you'd understand." He bent his head. "And… I didn't want you to think my leaving had anything to do with _you_ , Your Majesty. It's my honor to be a Knight of Faerghus in your service. I'll never regret it."

I grunted my disbelief, but said nothing. Instead I turned and crossed the grounds, heading for a small desk that was once used to score training matches. I found a sheaf of parchment and a quill in its drawers and sat down to write.

Ashe stayed where he was, shifting nervously, dwarfed by the shadow of Dedue standing just behind him. When I was finished, I rolled the parchment into a scroll and took a candle off a wall sconce to seal it with wax. Then I sat back down at the desk and held the scroll out between two fingers, forcing him to come to me to retrieve it.

He shuffled across the sand of the training square, halting. Like he were being asked to pick up his own death warrant, or perhaps approaching the hangman's scaffold itself.

When at last he stood before me, I spoke: "This writ will allow you to cross the border out of Faerghus." I had long since sealed it to prevent spies and assassins from passing through. "It does _not_ give you leave to return. If you try to re-enter the Kingdom in wartime, I'll consider it an act of aggression. Do you understand?"

His eyes shone with gratitude in the candlelight. It made me feel ill. "Yes, Your Majesty!"

I nodded and he took the parchment out of my hand.

"May I… stop by Gaspard territory and pick up my siblings?"

He'd be less likely to be taken for a spy by Imperial patrols, at any rate. "Yes."

"Thank you—thank you! I'm so relieved you understand." He backed away as he headed for the door. "And please… please be well, Your Majesty."

 _Goodbye, Ashe,_ I thought dimly. _I'll miss you_.

What I said was: "Get out of my sight."

Once he was gone, I let my elbows fall on the table and dropped my head in my hands. Dedue appeared at my side and gripped down on my shoulder, but this time it was more stern than reassuring.

"Are you sure it was a good idea to let him leave?" he asked. "He knows a great deal about our defenses here."

"So we'll redesign them." I propped my chin on my hand, suddenly tired. "Besides, just because he's 'leaving Faerghus' doesn't mean he'll immediately sign up to fight and die for the Imperial Army."

Though, if his animus toward the Church was so strong as to risk my wrath, it probably did mean that. House Vestra would certainly work hard to recruit him once they found out he was in Empire territory.

"Ashe is honorable," I continued. "I doubt he would use his knowledge for anything nefarious."

" _He_ doesn't have to. _Someone else_ will."

I scowled at him. "Hmm."

I meant for that to close the argument, but he had more to say. "Your Majesty, I insist that you spare a thought to your own safety once in awhile."

"I closed the _entire border_ after that poisoning incident."

"Yes," he agreed. " _After_."

"I've said all I mean to on this matter." I pushed my chair back and stood. "I'm going to bed."

"Of course you are," he said with an exasperated grunt. But at least I got a wry smile out of him. "The one time I don't want you to."

I smiled at him in kind, then picked up his wrist and wrapped his arm around my waist.

"You'll always be here to protect me, won't you?"

I expected he would give the usual equivocating response—that he had to take risks as my vassal, that he might not be around forever, that I was quite capable of looking after myself as long as I stayed rested and alert.

But this time, he bent to press a kiss into my hair and let his lips linger.

"I will."

* * *

My horror at the burning of my city woke Mercedes immediately, and she ran up to the front of the cart to see it.

"Oh, Goddess," she breathed. " _Annie!_ "

The Imperial Army was camped outside the city walls, well away from the flames. They stood ready to capture anyone who fled. There was no mistaking who was responsible.

"No, wait—" Ferdinand stammered. "This is—"

I seized him by the throat. " _You!_ "

"Dimitri, don't!" Mercedes threw herself between us, arms spread wide. " _He_ didn't do it!"

"Did you _know_ this would happen?!"

"Grk—no!" I loosened my grip so he could speak. "Edelgard would _not_ —"

He had not the _slightest inkling_ of what Edelgard would or would not do. I had seen fire like this before, all around me, consuming the tents of my father's caravan, our horses, our dead. All part of a slaughter that she had either committed, or abetted, or knowingly ignored, all for a "higher purpose."

"Kill this Imperial swine," said Father. "Kill him now!"

But I had no time to waste on him. I let him go and turned back around.

"Better hold on to something," I growled.

I snapped the horses into a gallop, and we raced down the north side of the ridge toward the city. Like always, no matter how hard I pushed them, I couldn't get there quickly enough. It seemed frozen in time on the horizon, ever-burning, a monument of war and grief.

Ferdinand's wyvern kept pace with us overhead, but Dedue trailed behind, too heavy to match speed with a horse. He'd have to catch up.

Soon we crossed the outer line of the Imperial camp. Soldiers and attendants had to jump out of the way as we charged toward the gates, but no one was moving to stop us. There were so many of them out here rather than inside… perhaps so they didn't roast like pigs in their own blaze.

Through my fury, I noticed a slight figure with a shock of silver hair among the rest. I pulled the horses up to get a better look. Like I'd thought, it was Ashe, carrying an armload of waterskins. He seemed to be attending to a group of refugees. How _nice_ , after he'd helped the Empire drive them all out here.

"Ashe!" Mercedes cried.

He turned to look, and his pale face brightened as he recognized her. I leapt off the cart and stalked toward him, an unfocused cloud of rage, and he immediately went dim again.

"Y-Your Majesty!" One of the waterskins dropped out of his grip and landed on the ground. "You're alive!"

 _Unfortunately for you_ , I thought.

"N-no, wait—" He dropped the skins and threw up his hands as if to block my advance. "The Imperial Army didn't do this! It was the Church! They—"

"You _lie!_ "

"It's true, sir."

I spun around to see who had spoken. It was a young woman in Imperial colors, wearing a soldier's helm. It took me a moment to recognize her in that uniform—she'd been dressed inconspicuously, last I saw—but it was my scout from the Battle of Tailtean. The one who'd first sighted the Empire on the plains.

"When the Church fled the plains, they used our reserve troops as shields," she said. "Just left them there to be overrun as they made their retreat. I tailed them here and followed them into the city. I didn't see who gave the order, but a tall, female knight with blonde hair threw the first burning rags."

Cassandra. She would never take such drastic orders from anyone other than Rhea herself.

The fight went out of me like a forgotten dream. In the end, it was our own allies who betrayed us, and I had been the one to invite them in. I who ignored their mad tirades. I who put Rhea's demands and sudden fits of violence and _everything_ aside for the goal of crushing Edelgard's skull in my hands. And this was the result: my army destroyed, my people scattered, my city in flames.

Ferdinand had the right of me after all.

I touched the scout on the shoulder and nodded to her. "Good work."

"Sir Gaspard," said Ferdinand, and patted the side of the cart. "Would you join us? Take us to Hubert, please."

"Lord Ferdinand?!" Ashe glanced between him and me, and lit up like a delighted child when I nodded. "Y-yes, of course!"

He climbed into the cart, and Mercedes gave him a hug before he moved up front to take the reins. She came for me next as I lurched into the back, crouched among occult tools like a sullen shadow, and dropped my face in my hands.

"There was no way you could have known," she said, and let her hand fall in my hair. "Who would think the Church of Seiros could burn a city?"

" _I_ should have." I knew what ruthlessness was. I knew that Rhea had it inside her, just as I did.

"Well, you can't give up now. We're so close." She stooped in front of me and tried to meet my eyes. "We can still save everyone. The citizens, our old friends… even Dedue."

Dedue… I could have used his steadying weight and whispered assurances right then. But it was like he'd always said: I'd have to learn to stand on my own.

Or perhaps not. Dedue and Mercedes, Ferdinand, Ashe, the scout, even Felix. I'd relied on all of them to make it this far. And they were still here, supporting me. Still fighting. For all our sakes.

Ashe pulled us up to the gates of Fhirdiad, where Hubert was directing the army's activities outside the walls. The strike force must have been inside the city, battling Rhea. His battalion stretched up and down the street just inside the gate, shaping bubbles of miasma and tossing them on the burning buildings, like an experiment. They must have been trying to capture the flames, or smother them, to put them out.

I was… grateful.

As ever having an acute sense for danger, Hubert lit on me right away, eye narrowed, lips drawn back.

"You," he rasped viciously, like a viper. "How did you—"

My Imperial "hostage" put his hands on the edge of the cart and leaned between us, catching his eye.

Hubert's face fell and he grew, somehow, even paler. "Ferdinand."

He climbed gingerly out of the cart—it was heartbreaking to behold, knowing two days ago he might have sprung like a gazelle—but he had balance enough to stride awkwardly across the ground toward Hubert, who stared wide-eyed and unmoving like he was watching a dead thing walk. Once he was close enough, Ferdinand threw himself on him and grabbed him into an embrace, landing wet, silly kisses on his cheek like an overlarge puppy.

Oh. Oh, of course.

Still, in all the unbelievable things I'd seen since taking the field at Tailtean, this was… up there.

"Augh," Hubert growled, trying to push him off. " _Not_ in front of the enemy."

Still, he dragged his hand back through that long, matted hair and looked, for a moment, a bit relieved.

It faded quickly as he turned his gaze back to me, sudden and sharp, when I jumped to the ground in front of him. "This doesn't change anything," he said. "You're still the greatest threat to Her Majesty's plans, now that you live. I cannot let you pass."

"I don't need your permission to enter _my_ city." I glanced back at Areadbhar, still in the cart, graying and lifeless. "But I will need a lance."

"On it!" Ashe leapt from the cab and darted into a convoy wagon that waited by the walls. A moment later he reappeared, holding a throwing spear, and tossed it underhand into my grip. I hefted it to test its weight and gave it a swing. It wasn't a divine weapon of terrifying arcane might, but it would serve.

Hubert smirked and raised a hand; his battalion drew in to block the gates, hands glowing with bated spheres of miasma now packed with fire. "And just how did you plan to get past us?"

I was about to ask him whether he _really_ wanted me to kill all these people unnecessarily, but the roar of a demonic beast pierced all thought, echoing off the city walls.

Dedue!

He rose into view behind us, footfalls shaking the ground, his Crest Stone leaving quivering trails of blood-red light in the dark. I was amazed he had not been attacked, but the Imperial Army would have been used to demonic beasts roaming around. He stopped before me and trilled, hunched forward, awaiting my orders.

Hubert opened his mouth to speak, but Ferdinand pulled him back, whispering something that made him keep still.

Mercedes lifted something out of the cart and threw it to me. It was the folded metal collar left in the cart by the torchbearers, The Ones Who… something. Dark magic arced off it in menacing waves.

"Just take it," she pleaded. "Just in case. We don't want him to hurt someone unnecessarily."

"That's Banshee Theta magic," Hubert observed. "It'll constrain his movements."

I didn't like it, but I didn't care to argue. I slung it over my shoulder and resolved to dump it somewhere inside.

"Right," I said, angling my spear toward the gates, and the masked mages who now parted before them. "Let's—"

Anything I was about to say was cut off as Dedue snatched me off the ground and lifted me into the air. He dropped me onto his shoulder, and when I protested, his tongue flicked out and drenched my entire face with an affectionate lick.

"Eyaugh," I said, dragging beast-spit out of my eyes. "Oh… very well. Ashe, Mercedes—follow us into the city and find anyone still trapped inside."

"Yes, Your Majesty!" Ashe puffed himself up to full height and bowed. He really was a Knight of Faerghus to the end.

We charged through the gates. The two of them peeled off to search for survivors, while Dedue and I forged ahead to find the battle. He was so massive, even the rooftop fires burned well below me, but I couldn't see very far through the rising smoke. Where was Rhea? I had to find her quickly—ending her was the surest way to end all of it.

Dedue turned his head to the west and tramped through the streets in that direction. Perhaps he'd sensed something. We passed pieces of Rhea's golems and fallen soldiers, but no fighting. Eventually, through the roar of flames, I caught snatches of raised voices somewhere on the ground.

"—can't believe you'd go along with this!"

"What was I supposed to do?! Between my father and—"

We turned a corner down a dead-end road and found the remains of a skirmish. Bodies of Church soldiers littered the streets in an arc, cut with sword wounds, and in the center of it all stood Felix, gripping Annette by the arms, both bathed in the Aegis Shield's golden glow.

"Aaah!" Annette jumped back when she saw Dedue, then her eyes kept traveling up. " _Aaaaaahhh!_ Your Majesty!"

They were well away from any flames, but I thought Felix was going to ignite. "Why am I not surprised?! _Of course_ you would survive having ten tons of metal dropped on you and then ride a demonic beast into battle. Of course you would!"

"I missed you too, Felix."

"Ugh." He was comically tiny at this distance, like a peevish baby bird. "So do I have to beat you into submission again, or are you here to help slay the fifty-foot dragon?"

"I'm here to stop the senseless violence committed against my people," I said. "Which means, for now, the dragon. Where can I find her?"

His mouth set in a line. "She's up by the castle gates. Edelgard and the rest are engaging her now. They _won't_ be thrilled to have your assistance."

"Fine." The fastest way up there was to climb the guard terrace. "Annette, go get your father. Tell him my orders are for every Kingdom soldier remaining to help take down the Church. He's a Knight of Faerghus again, and he _must_ do as I say."

"Right!" She took off straight away, and managed to leap over the burning debris in her path rather than crashing into it.

"I'd better go with her," said Felix. "Don't kill that scaly bitch till I get there."

"No promises."

He left, and I urged Dedue on toward the castle. It was slow going—we had to wind around flaming buildings, piles of rushes and abandoned carts left to smolder in the streets, fleeing citizens finally able to escape their homes. The smoke was becoming unbearable, black and thick, blocking any view more than a house's length away… unless the thing you wanted to see was also burning.

At one point, the disembodied arm of a golem reached for us, holding one of Dedue's legs in place until he stamped it into powder with the other.

It wasn't until we cleared the west stairs to the guard terrace that I finally spotted Rhea. I'd never seen her Immaculate form myself, but I recognized it immediately—the bulging white sinew in her neck, the mad eyes, the way she looked at all the human soldiers below her like rebellious livestock that _forced_ her to put them to the sword before she was ready to feast. As big as Dedue was, she was easily twice his size or more now, blocking the path to the castle.

It took me a moment to realize that the castle itself was ablaze. The outer structure was calm, dark, untouched, but the windows flickered as everything inside was consumed. My city, my home… everything I loved was turning to ash. And this "divine beast" had done it.

Yet even after destroying it all, she guarded the castle gates like a scrapyard dog. I yelled in a fury and pointed my lance at her. None of this was hers to protect. It was mine.

As Felix had said, the Imperial strike force was already crowded around her, but when she heard my shout—or felt Dedue's footfalls, or simply sensed my wrath—she raised her great horned head and spread her jaws at me.

"Yoooouuuu," she growled, and her voice seemed to boom from every burning wall. "You dare stand against me?! I have your vow. I have your _blood_."

It was she who dared. I snarled. "You have never understood your place in _my_ kingdom."

When Dedue roared in challenge, she threw back her long neck. " _Betrayer!_ " she screamed. " _Kill_ _the betrayer!_ "

Overhead, the rising flames blew out a window in the castle, taking my attention away. The window's fragments sparkled in the firelight as they fell to earth. It was the king's apartments, my father's bedchamber. My stomach dropped. I had just been there a few weeks before. If I had known it would all be consumed, I would have taken more care to look around and remember.

A figure appeared in the window, shadowed by the blaze behind. By size, it looked like a child. It climbed up on the sill, bracing itself on either side with both hands, and leaned out over the war-torn city.

I couldn't think why there was a child in the castle, but it was clear they were going to fall, or else burn to death. I whipped around to see if there were any Imperial fliers nearby to attempt a rescue, but it was so hard to make out anything through the smoke.

Suddenly another building went up, right below the window, and the plume of flame lit up the figure's face. It was a little boy. Blond, with big blue eyes that reflected only fire and rage. He couldn't have been more than three or four years old. He looked like—

"What the fuck." Felix had appeared below us. Annette was nowhere to be seen, probably rallying the remaining Kingdom forces along with Gustave. "You had a kid?"

"No," I breathed.

The boy opened his mouth wider than should have been possible, showing a lizard-like maw full of teeth, and shrieked. It wasn't out of fear—it was a shriek of vengeance and hate, of ancient malice, and it made my bones quake inside my skin.

Then he jumped, and before he hit the ground he dissolved in a flash, replaced by a golden figure with leathery wings.

"What is _that?_ " Felix yelled.

It was the creature from Rhea's glass chrysalis in the castle. The one I'd thought was a corpse.

So that was it. Why she'd wanted me to see it… why it looked like me.

"It's the Grim Dragon," I said. "Born from a shard of Areadbhar's stone. She must have used my blood to give it flesh… and the Crest of Blaiddyd."

" _That thing has your powers?!_ "

It shrilled and crashed into a burning tower. When it couldn't free itself, it turned white with fury and exploded, raining mortar and stonework over the city. I'd destroyed some Imperial fortifications that way, using my Crest.

"Oh, _shit_."

"Take care of Rhea!" I leapt to my feet on Dedue's shoulder and tracked the dragon's darting movements with my eyes. She had called it to come after me, so I would be the one to meet it. "We'll handle this!"

"What are you talking about?! You can't drive that beast like a horse, and you haven't even got your relic!"

 _It's Dedue, not "that beast,"_ I almost said, but what would be the point? "Stop arguing and go!"

He grumbled, but went. The dragon wheeled around in the sky and darted toward me, screaming. I readied my lance so it could impale itself with its own momentum, but Dedue smacked it out of the air before it could get close enough.

It hit the ground, but recovered on the bounce, spreading its wings and holding itself aloft without missing a step. It was hardy as well as fast. It would be difficult to fight it from a stationary position like this.

I put a hand on Dedue's neck. "Get me to the street."

He gathered me up and started to lower me, but the dragon didn't wait for us to reposition. It flew into Dedue's face and breathed a ball of fire into his snout before kicking him in the jaw. Dedue flailed his other arm, trying to swat it away, but it was too fast—and when it drove him back, he stumbled back over a pile of rubble and crashed into the wall. His hand landed on the ground, but I was safely enclosed in his fist and suffered no injury.

Once I pried myself loose, Dedue raised his head and snarled in sharp irritation. He was all right.

Still, we wouldn't get very far like this. I needed to get up in the air somehow. But how could I—

From somewhere high above, a voice rang out: " _Coming through!_ "

Before I could look up to see who it was, I was snatched off the ground by wyvern talons and hauled up into the air. Streets and burning rooftops shrunk beneath my feet as we soared upward, circling over the golden dragon while it spat and hissed. Soon we flew behind a column of smoke, which hid us from its sight.

I looked up to see who had taken me. I couldn't make out much beyond the wyvern's belly, but on its left, a banner of bright red hair flapped in the wind, lit with flame.

" _Ferdinand?_ "

He set me on a high rampart, far from any flames, and landed on the stone before me. It _was_ Ferdinand, looking cheerful and healthy atop his mount. He was still travel-stained, but it was clear he wasn't in any pain.

"You're all right?"

"Never better!" he said, flexing an arm. "Hubert took me to Manuela. She would be devastated if I could never do her dance routine again, you know."

I blinked dumbly at him.

" _And_ she said the only reason she could help me at all was because of your and Mercedes's good work in the field." He grinned and reached for something strapped to his back. "But here… you will be wanting this!"

He tossed me what he was holding, and when I caught it, its glaive head flared to life. Areadbhar… my father's lance.

"You repaired it?"

He laughed. "I am flattered, but no. The Empire has professional smiths in our convoy."

Still, there was no reason they would have worked on it at all if he hadn't insisted. "I… thank you."

"Say no more. The battle awaits!" He nudged his wyvern forward to the edge of the rampart, then peered over to where the Grim Dragon was now speeding toward us, thrashing its tail. "Now… what are we fighting?"

"A beast Rhea made from my blood and the Crest Stone of Blaiddyd."

He looked up sharply and the color drained from his face. " _What?_ "

"You may want to step back."

He got his wyvern in the air just fast enough to miss the explosion of stone at its feet. The dragon spun up overhead, twirling in gold as its white-hot power dissipated, then spat out a beam of light from its mouth. I leapt aside to dodge, and Ferdinand landed right next to me, throwing out his hand.

"Get on!"

He pulled me up behind him and we flew up into the night.

The dragon was faster and more mobile than a wyvern, especially one carrying two riders. Ferdinand had to use its momentum against it with quick dips and turns to keep it from killing us, all while trying to bring me close enough to get in a solid strike. At one point it knocked the wyvern's leg, and we tumbled end over end before it recovered.

I wasn't accustomed to fighting in three dimensions, and it took me a moment to get my bearings, but I was a warrior born and got the hang of it quickly. Soon the dragon dove at me, screeching, and I was able to stab my lance into its mouth and bear in, knocking it back with a blast of Crest power. It spun through pillars of smoke until it hit a tower, stunning it, and red—not green—blood seeped from its jaws. My blood.

Good. I was afraid it might be immune to my relic somehow, given its makeup, but it seemed the Crest Stone of Areadbhar could injure itself just fine.

The dragon righted itself quickly, however, and streaked after us just as fast as before.

"It does not seem to be taking much damage!" Ferdinand called. "At this rate, we will tire out before you can kill it."

He was right about that. If there was a way I could keep it close to me to land a better hit…

"Can you get me on top of it?"

"You wish to _land_ on it?" he asked. "It moves far too fast for that. Even if I can hold position over it, if it dodges your grab when you jump, you will fall to your death!"

"That didn't stop you," I said.

"I _cannot_ recommend it!"

Still, he pulled back on the reins and we climbed straight up, racing for the stars on the other side of the smoke. I looked back to find that the dragon was following us in a straight path, gaining fast. At my signal, Ferdinand flipped his mount head over feet and I dropped straight down, grasping at the dragon for purchase as I slid along its body. I snagged my hand around its wing joint and hung on while it tossed, shrieking like a bat. I pinned its body between my knees for leverage, then brought up my lance with the other hand to cross it around its neck, holding it in a lock between the lance shaft and my shoulder.

It wriggled out from under my legs and rolled; I dangled helplessly off it, holding on only with both hands on the lance. If it pulled its neck free, I was finished.

It somersaulted forward and flung me off into empty air.

I was falling, belly-up. I watched Ferdinand's face as he dove for me, arm outstretched, only to be knocked away by the dragon and sent flying into a wall.

I wouldn't survive like he had if I landed like this, breaking the fall with my back and shoulders. I really was plummeting to my death.

Remembering it now, I was… oddly calm. It would be all right, I thought. Edelgard would defeat Rhea. The Imperial Army would put out the fires. Mercedes and Ferdinand would convince them to help Dedue, and he would live, because that was my wish. There was no need for me, really, anymore.

What a comforting thought. Even Father was silent.

I had the wind knocked out of me when a huge hand grabbed me out of my fall. It lowered me gently until I was level with its elbow, and its eyeless maw watched me curiously while I coughed, struggling for breath.

Dedue…

Of course he would be the one to save me. Who wanted me to survive even when I'd made up my mind not to.

_Even bound up in the skin of a monster, you never change._

I wrapped my arms around his thumb and held on, waiting for my breathing to steady, and he closed it around me in an embrace.

_I love you…_

Overhead, Ferdinand was still battling the dragon. He had his axe out, finally, but was using it to block attacks rather than hit. Probably wise. Commit too much to a swing, and it would get around him and tear his arm off.

Dedue set me on the ground. He used his hand to pantomime grabbing something out of the air, then opened the hand and slammed a fist into his open palm.

He was right—we had to find a way to hold it still somehow to get a fatal strike in.

I rubbed at my shoulder and was surprised to find an unfamiliar metal plate there. I pulled it off my arm and remembered: the torchbearers' collar.

"Ferdinand!" I shouted.

"You survived?!" he yelled back, moments before the dragon came back with another swipe and he had to drop out of its range.

We'd both been hearing that a lot lately.

"Get down here—I know what to do."

He flew through towers of smoke to distract the dragon, but made his way to the ground.

"I need to get up on its back again." I lifted up the collar to show him. "If I can put this on it, it'll restrict its movements. It won't be able to fight back."

He leaned over and looked at me seriously. "You want to restrict the motion… of something airborne… while you are on its back?"

Well, they didn't call me the Tempest King because I was _detail-oriented_.

The dragon plunged at us and we both fell back. I found my lance where it had fallen and brought it up in challenge. As long as the dragon was near the ground, it shouldn't be a problem. I slung the collar back over my shoulder to wait for an opening.

It was too agile to crash into the street even at that speed, but when it pulled up to take another pass, it ran straight into Dedue. He seized it by the neck, held it aloft, and punched it square in the head.

Ah, so he was being literal.

He drew his fist back for another blow, but the dragon began to blaze white in his grip.

" _No!_ "

He flung it away before it could ignite; it exploded at the base of a wall tower and brought the whole column crashing down on it. I sprinted toward the rubble, lance raised. I had to reach it before it could burst free and get back into the air.

Its head emerged from the pile of stone, screaming. There wasn't time for the collar. It was already starting to glow again.

With all my strength and the power of my bloodline, I pierced its throat with my lance and ran it through. Blood sprayed from the wound as its pulse continued to beat. I dragged the blade down through its neck to the chest, shattering its ribs, and it hissed as the last air left its body.

While it was laid open, chin to belly, its blood began to bubble and steam. The dragon form evaporated into sparkling light, leaving the unmarked body of a little boy. My unhappy scion.

Ferdinand dismounted and ran up behind me, only to stagger back when he saw what I'd killed. "Oh—!"

I closed the child's eyes and let my hand sweep back through his blond hair. He'd led a brief and cruel life. Rhea betrayed him, too. If I were a better man… could he have been saved?

"I am so sorry," Ferdinand began. "I did not know he was your—"

"He wasn't," I said, and wiped my nose on my wrist as I got up to stand.

We turned east to watch the castle gates. Rhea, too, was defeated, though she didn't seem to realize it yet. Her body was slick with emerald gore even as she reared it back for one last strike. The professor and Edelgard leapt forward and struck her between the eyes with both relics; her towering neck arched up and fell slowly, and when it landed, the entire city shook.

So ended the Church of Seiros.

Dedue came up beside me and nudged my face with his knuckle. I noticed his palm was smoldering—the dragon must have burned it with its heat before exploding. I stroked my hand up the length of his finger in sympathy.

"Go on back to Hubert," I told Ferdinand. "Help put the fire out, if you can. We'll rest here for a moment."

He glanced at me, glanced over to where Edelgard was no doubt celebrating her victory, then met my gaze again with raised eyebrows.

I shook my head. "I have no enemies left here."

"She may not agree," he replied, but swung himself back onto his mount and vanished into the night.

I drew Dedue's hand down to my eye level. "Let me see."

He opened it, hissing. The center of his palm was almost a crater, black and smoking, its edges blistered. But the hand itself remained intact; the bands of angry red skin that formed it hadn't loosened. That meant it probably wouldn't be possible to injure the flesh enough to get his real body back… not without killing him. I wondered, not for the first time, if it would even be possible at all.

A wail rose up from the castle gates, and I turned to look. Edelgard crouched on the flagstones, facing away, her cape a gem of brightest red in the firelight. I couldn't see anyone else around. Something had happened.

"Stay here," I told him, and swept off to investigate.

The castle was still burning overhead as I approached her. More windows blew out, and the blue banners of the Kingdom were being eaten away, one after another. Soon it would be a blackened, empty husk, devoid of its living history.

Edelgard sat up, cradling a head of ocean-blue hair on her shoulder. It was the professor, just as they'd looked when they first came to the Academy, before divine power blanched their features into something near unrecognizable. I couldn't see if they were alive or dead, if the Emperor's sobs came out of relief or despair.

What I could see was the white flesh of Edelgard's neck, an enticing, dewy sliver just visible between her collar and the roots of her hair as I stood over her. I hadn't realized I was still holding my lance.

"How nicely the table is laid," came the voice in my mind. "Kill her. Kill her now."

 _She didn't do this, Father,_ I thought.

"It doesn't matter. Those zealots wouldn't have come here at all if she hadn't made her war."

_I know, but—_

"Nor would a pathetic simpleton like you be king if she hadn't killed me. Now, because of your weakness, your incompetence, all you rule over is the burning of our heirlooms and the death gasp of our country's history as it's dragged into hell."

I slammed the pole of my lance onto the flagstones.

Edelgard turned, showing shock for only an instant before her eyes narrowed and she bared her teeth at me in contempt.

Crouched down, eyes red and filled with tears, no weapon and not even her arms free, she was helpless at my feet. But she never wavered, never even dignified me with words. Between us, she was always the stronger.

I threw Areadbhar down at her side and turned away.

_If our country is dragged into hell, it can rest with you, Father._

I walked back the way I came, toward where Dedue waited for me in a ruined corner of my lost kingdom. If I killed her, I would never have the Empire's help to get him back. And beyond that, I…

No. That was enough. The rest would remain to be seen.


	7. Chapter 7

We departed Fhirdiad just as we entered it, with me kneeling on Dedue's shoulder. It would be the last time I ever saw the city of my birth.

Hubert's warlocks had moved in deeper, perfecting their technique to quench the flames. Very little of it still burned, outside the north end and the castle. I didn't know what the long-term effects of drenching everything in miasma would be, however.

When the field outside the city came into view, my heart sank. It was well past sunset now, and dark, but small fires burned as far as the eye could see. Only a fraction of it was the Imperial Army. The rest were refugees, now without homes, work, or services. This would be the legacy of the Church… or of my own misrule.

Hubert himself was still installed near the gates, taking questions and giving direction to the army's subcommanders. Ferdinand was at his side, oiling a piece of armor. Many of the other generals, my old classmates, lingered nearby, resting after a hard-fought battle. Mercedes chattered away at her brother, who looked more embarrassed than anything else.

I had Dedue set me on the ground in front of Hubert. He met me with a smirk and swept out his arm to encompass the breadth of humanity out there in the night. "Welcome to your kingdom, Your Majesty."

The look on my face must have been painfully grave, for he almost looked ashamed he'd said it.

"I think we can agree I am no king anymore," I said.

A dark eyebrow quirked. "You abdicate willingly?"

"Perhaps." I reached up and took Dedue's nearest talon in my hand. "But I must ask something of you first."

He folded his arms and waited. He was determined not to make this easy for me.

"Please…" I bent my head into a bow. "Please help me restore Dedue back to his real body. I don't know if it's possible, but—"

"Hmph," he grunted. "Mend your lance, save your city, reconstitute your boyfriend—you ask for much in exchange for one hostage."

Ferdinand scoffed and looked scandalized. "What? Am I not worth it?"

"You were worth the lance, _perhaps_ ," said Hubert, sneering.

Soon a new voice cut through their squabbling, commanding and proud: "Give him what he wants."

I turned back toward the gates. Edelgard staggered toward us, bent under the weight of the professor, who was barely conscious but clearly alive as they clung to her shoulders.

"King Dimitri," she began, somehow still regal and self-composed despite her laboring breath and the sweat, soot, and blood smearing her face. "In exchange for a peaceful transfer of power, I swear that I will commit all of the Empire's knowledge and resources toward restoring your companion."

My pulse raced in my throat. There was hope for him after all.

"However, _peaceful_ does not mean _bloodless_. You must realize there cannot be lasting peace in Fódlan while the both of us live. You know, better than anyone, that it doesn't matter what you say if there are people with grievances willing to steal your name and rally under your banner." Her eyes flicked away, toward what I could not see. "Claude understood this as well."

She was right—I did know. The long years of screaming from every high tower that the Duscur people were not responsible for the tragedy, and the utter failure of anyone to listen, were a testament to the truth in her words.

"Will you agree to make this sacrifice in exchange for his life?" she asked.

Felix jumped up from the crate he'd been sitting on and drew his sword on her. "Like hell."

There was a shrill of magic and steel as the former Blue Lions and Black Eagles all pulled out their weapons, facing off against each other.

" _I will_ ," I shouted, throwing out my hands so they would all calm the hell down. "But _only_ after I see it done. I must confirm for myself that he's been restored."

She inclined her head in a nod. "Very well."

"Well then," said Hubert, dropping his arms. "Come with me."

I followed him away from the city walls, into the black forest of tents. I left Mercedes behind to look after Dedue, but Felix and the others trailed behind me, all trying to argue.

"Dimitri, you _can't_ do this," he said.

I snapped back at him: "You seemed fine with putting Edelgard on the throne of all Fódlan a day ago."

"When I thought you were a bloodthirsty lunatic who would get himself killed in battle, sure!"

Hubert led us to a large, well-appointed tent with its flap down.

"Will these be your… associates?" I asked. "The—the—"

"Those Who Slither in the Dark?" He waved a hand. "Pfeh. You don't need them. And you _don't_ want to be in their debt."

"Are they not your allies?"

He gave me a baleful look that promised certain death if I ever suggested such a thing again.

"Regardless of _what_ they are, they are sure to be unnecessary in pursuit of your goal," he said. "The Empire boasts the foremost Crest Scholars in all of Fódlan."

He pulled the flap back to reveal… something that looked like an Almyran seraglio from one of my uncle's filthy books, except someone had mistakenly dropped a library into it. The ground wasn't visible at all, covered in pillows of sheep's wool and silk, throw blankets and stuffed animals, punctuated with teetering towers of books. Bright lanterns hung from the tent's metal bracing. Amidst this high indulgence lay, predictably, Linhardt, as well as Professor Hanneman and the warlock Lysithea from the Alliance. They all had thick tomes open around them and seemed to be studying intently.

Linhardt and Hanneman I understood, but everything I remembered about Lysithea told me she was hostile even to the mere mention of Crests.

"Ah," Linhardt half-greeted, half-yawned. "You've made it."

Something was strange about all this. Why would the three of them be together, waiting for me? Edelgard couldn't have predicted I'd make this request, or agree to a trade she hadn't even offered yet. She hadn't even known I was alive.

I looked at Hubert, but he simply stared back at me like I were the mad one.

Hanneman adjusted his monocle. "Well, more time is always a boon, but I believe we have enough to be getting on with."

"Right," said Lysithea. "As long as _someone_ doesn't mess it up."

Linhardt rubbed his nose. "I have no idea what you mean."

She rolled her eyes—fondly?—then turned to me. "There's some open space left on the north side of the walls, near the cliff. Bring Dedue there, okay? We'll meet you."

I staggered out of the tent in a daze. It was all happening so fast, I couldn't be sure they weren't deceiving me. One way or another, they'd have my head off before dawn.

I retrieved Dedue as instructed and brought him to the field alongside the cliff. The entire surviving entourage of former Officer's Academy students and staff came with us, with the exception of Edelgard and her professor. The overcast spring skies of Faerghus hid the moon, so the only light came from torches, Dedue's Crest Stone, and the small ball of light Linhardt held in his hand as he took a last few flips through the pages of a book.

"Linhardt and Professor Hanneman have been studying demonic beast transformations since the incident in the chapel five years ago, back at the monastery," Lysithea explained. "And I, well—I have some experience with all of this. I'm _fairly_ sure we can make it work, but in magic there are no guarantees, especially working with ancient material like this."

She had me move Dedue into the center of the open space, while the three of them took positions around him.

"Now, I'll explain to you what we're about to do. We believe the Crest Stone infects the life force somehow, which is why the transformation only dispels when someone dies. In order to do it while he's alive, we'll have to take him to the brink, and basically trick the infection into thinking he's dead or dying so it doesn't keep replicating. That means…" She twisted her hands together. "It's… _really_ going to be unpleasant for him. So we'll need _you_ to keep him from escaping or coming after one of us."

I still had the torchbearers' collar over my shoulder. I hated the idea of using it on him, but I couldn't think of any other way to keep him immobile in an open field.

"How will it work?" I asked.

"I'll attack him, Linhardt will heal him, and Professor Hanneman will try to isolate the energy coming from the Crest Stone so it can't keep flowing."

The more I learned, the more this sounded like a terrible plan. It amounted to nothing but uncertainty and the promise of failure. Just beat him down with dark magic and hope he reverted?

I looked up at him and found he was looking back at me. He chirred agreeably, swinging his tail. If the beast had a separate consciousness from Dedue, it had certainly come to trust me in our time together. And I was about to sunder that trust by killing it.

"Ugh," Lysithea grumbled. "It's almost cute, isn't it?"

I sighed. "I don't think I can do this."

"Oh, don't worry," Linhardt cut in. "If the experiment fails, we'll just stop before he dies! No _permanent_ harm done, and we're just back where we started. And even if I pass out, there are plenty of other healers here who can take over."

That was… not as reassuring as he probably assumed.

"Let's at least give it a try," Lysithea said, reasonably, until one remembered what she was actually proposing. "Like he says, if it doesn't work, we can stop."

"Dedue was one of mine," Hanneman added. He'd been our supervising professor at the Academy. "Just as you were. You can rest assured I would not subject him to such a terrible risk if I did not have full confidence in our success."

All right, then. I beckoned Dedue down to me, stroked my hand over his jaw when he bent forward. "Come and sit," I said.

He thudded down on the ground, and I heard something break and collapse behind the city walls.

I held up the collar to show him. "I'm going to put this on you," I said. "It may hurt, and you won't be able to move, but don't be afraid. Everyone is here because they care about you."

He rumbled through his open mouth—uncomprehending, or so it seemed to me. I still didn't really know how much he could understand.

But he picked me up and set me on his chest. I climbed the rest of the way to his shoulder and knelt there, ran my hands over his striated neck. I drew a breath and readied the collar.

"I… I'm sorry."

I shoved the metal panel against his skin. The collar flared with umbral magic and telescoped out in repeating panels, encircling his throat in a tight hold. When its ends snapped together, the Banshee spell activated and he jerked back, rearing his head, roaring with fury and pain.

Lysithea hit him with a blast of magic to knock him on his back. His movements were constrained, but he was still struggling, railing against his bonds. I leapt off his shoulder and threw my body across his arm to try to hold him down, though I didn't know if my strength would serve against his enormous size.

"Do it now!" I yelled.

The sky around us warmed with blazing light as Lysithea cast Seraphim. The spell was devastating to his profaned flesh; his skin beneath me blistered and smoked. Yet the form remained… just like when he'd touched the Grim Dragon.

When I turned my head, I could just make out Hanneman, working his hands like he was shaping wet clay. The Crest Stone blazed, its trails of light dizzying as Dedue threw his head side to side, trying to free himself. I couldn't tell if Hanneman was drawing anything out of it or not.

I couldn't see Linhardt, but I heard him shouting: "It's not working!"

"You're healing him too fast!" Lysithea snapped.

"Well I don't want him to _die!_ "

" _Ugh_."

The air flashed from white to poison purple as she changed spells, and a moon about the size of a man manifested over Dedue's chest. Its great weight drew in everything loose from the ground nearby: dirt, rocks, unsecured weapons… even I had to dig my knees into the ground and hold on to not be carried away. But finally, finally the fibers of the beast's skin began to pull loose and fray.

I couldn't know if what waited within them was alive or dead.

The beast's rage turned to panicked howls as its flesh ripped apart. It dragged its opposite hand off the ground with tremendous effort and forced it across its own body to reach for me, clawing, straining, trying to grab me off of it or crush me to death.

 _If you're not really Dedue_ , I thought. _If all this time you were just a stranger and a beast…_

My body hit the ground as its arm dissolved beneath me, and my throat went thick with grief.

_Then thank you… for everything._

One last shriek and it was gone, bursting into shreds of leathery binding. The moon was dispelled, and the sky retreated back to its overcast, early morning gloom.

Linhardt rushed forward, hands still glowing with magic. He crouched over a figure that lay collapsed in the dirt, formless in the dark but for a silver spaulder and a bright blue scarf.

Dedue…

I willed myself toward them in a staggering crawl. I was overwhelmed with emotions—relief and terror, joy and regret, hope and its chilling opposite. If he hadn't survived, what would I—

Linhardt lifted his head and fixed me with a slow, lazy smile. "He's all right."

All the air went out of me in a sob and I leapt the remaining distance to fall on him in an embrace. I wrapped my whole body around him, crushed against his armor plate, wanting to absorb him into my skin where he would be safe forever. He was unconscious and his breathing was unsteady, but his pulse beat steadfast in his beautiful throat as I pressed my face against it and wept.

Linhardt stood, and Lysithea came up beside him. Well behind them, Hanneman crouched to retrieve the Crest Stone where it had fallen, and held it up in front of his monocle to examine it.

I had no words for them… simply watched them through misted eyes as my mouth worked in pathetic silence. I was more grateful than I could say. I was indebted to them in a way I could never repay, even if I lived a thousand years. I hoped my great relief could convey it.

As the first touch of dawn bled over the horizon, the Imperial generals parted before me and Edelgard appeared behind them, carrying her jawbone axe. It flickered in the dark, clenching its teeth.

When I'd stood over her at the castle gates, she'd faced me boldly even through her despair, never acknowledging that she was completely at my mercy. In contrast, I was a mess, utterly unmade by my relief at Dedue's return. I would throw myself at her feet like a beggar for allowing me to have him back, even for this short time.

Her face softened a hair's breadth as she looked down at me. "You always did cry."

So she did remember…

I wiped my face and got up to stand. I tried to meet her on my feet as a king, though I was just a miserable supplicant now.

"I have two final requests," I said.

She gave a tight nod and waited for me to speak.

"My retainers… I ask that no harm come to them."

"Agreed, for now." She flipped her axe so that its head faced the sky, and let the haft rest on the ground. "However, if they raise arms against the Empire, we will defend ourselves."

"Very well…"

I looked back at Dedue. He turned his head on the grass, stirring but not yet awake, and my heart leapt. If I had to die… I had to abdicate my responsibility to him, as well.

"Lastly… please restore the region of Duscur to its people. Respect their right to self-rule. Help them to prosper again."

Her mouth stiffened. "Their genocide was a heinous abuse by Fódlan's nobility, a symptom of its 'righteous' self-obsession and the absence of any moral account." She lifted her chin. "To right such wrongs is well within my mandate. You have my word."

"Thank you… El."

I fell to my knees before her, laying my fists on the ground. Annette sobbed into Felix's chest. Ashe's jaw was turned up and proud, but his lip was quivering. Mercedes covered her mouth with her hands. Even Ferdinand looked away in regret when I tried to meet his gaze.

"You don't all have to stay here and watch," I said.

"Shut up," Felix hissed. "Of course we do."

I smiled, despite myself.

"Mercedes… when Dedue wakes, please tell him what happened here. Tell him my last order is for him to live freely, and abandon any thought of vengeance."

All she could do was nod, eyes bright with tears in the early morning light.

_My friends… thank you._

I bowed my head as Edelgard approached me. She let her hand fall in my hair, and bent down to whisper in my ear.

"For understanding my purpose, and for accepting this wretched fate…" She sighed shakily. "I am grateful, and will be so forever… my brother."

She kissed my hairline, then lowered my head to the ground.

I shut my eyes and tried to slow my breathing. I had chosen death in the name of peace, but my body was clammy with primal dread, the instinctive nature of all things to fight for survival.

I thought of Dedue, breathing somewhere near, and how wonderful it was to know that he would live even if I could not.

 _You were worth everything_ , I thought. _I love you. I hope you can forgive me one day._

I heard the axe cut the air, felt a sharp pain in my head, and then nothing.


	8. Epilogue

I never imagined that sunsets on the Duscur peninsula would be so different than those in Fhirdiad. Standing barefoot on the beach, watching the sun sink below the sea, I faced the same way, on the same continent, under the same sky as I had done all my life. In the capital, they'd had a stark, treacherous beauty, turning vivid and violent colors behind the knife-edged rocks of our coastline. Here, the canvas between the sea and shore was unbroken, and the full palette of the sky was opened up before me, lovely and serene.

And when that serenity was disturbed, it was with joy and hope. Two children raced past me into the ebbing waves, tagging each other in play. They were young enough to have been born after the tragedy, old enough to have memories of displacement and want. Still, in this moment, they were happy. Carefree. It was a balm to have thriving villages full of brown faces again.

Dedue came up behind me—he was smiling, too. His hair and his white linen shirt glowed in the warming light. He was a splendid vision, and my heart melted to a quivering spill.

As always, he had to catch himself before bowing his head to me, and instead reached up to tug down the brim of my straw hat with affection. I wasn't Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Tempest King of Faerghus anymore. I had a new name, and a new role. But my purpose was unchanged: to punish those responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur, and restore the sovereignty of this land to its native people.

The first was already done. After Edelgard knocked me out with the haft of her axe, Hubert had been able to fabricate my corpse using the last pieces of my armor and the Grim Dragon's remains. It shared my blood, after all, so even if the Agarthans performed experiments on it, they would only confirm the "truth" that I was no more. As a result, while they had their eyes fixed on Edelgard and her retainers, waiting for her inevitable counterstrike against them, they were taken utterly by surprise when the six surviving Blue Lions from the dead nations of Faerghus and Duscur swarmed into their lair instead.

We cleared them out in weeks, after which Edelgard had her "uncle" formally charged with masterminding the tragedy and executed in Fhirdiad's public square. I did not attend. I had seen enough death. And if my father's voice cursed me to the end of my life for my weakness, it would be a fair burden to bear for all the lives I had sacrificed.

Now the hard work of rebuilding had begun. I couldn't be seen in the old Faerghus territories, in case someone recognized me and got it into their head to start a rebellion using my name, so instead of helping my own people, I remained in Duscur. It suited me just fine. Here was where my need for atonement weighed heaviest.

It was coming along well. There were several new villages along the coast like this one, small but determined, where the survivors of the diaspora could come back together in their own land. Dedue took up his father's trade and opened a smithy. I was not fit to be a craftsman, but I did manual labor wherever I was called on, taught reading and swordsmanship, and referred the village leaders' concerns back to the Empire as its envoy. Every few months, we packed up and moved on to the next village. It was a rewarding life.

I still couldn't say whether it was worth five years of unprovoked war, but Edelgard's vision was indeed a magnificent sight.

"In the end, it seems your faith in me was misplaced," I said.

Dedue frowned. "Why would you say that?"

"It was Edelgard's rule that made this possible. Not mine."

He snorted. "I do not see her here in our villages, raising homes, building trust. Nor was she the one negotiating on behalf of the Empire. You were."

That was true, but I couldn't help feeling that the Empire's overthrow of Faerghus—Duscur's hated oppressors—helped warm them to our diplomacy. He was also omitting his own role in the effort, as usual. None of this would have been possible without him.

"Even so… sometimes I feel that I have let you down."

"You think that I would lose respect for your accomplishments because you did not make them alone?" He grasped me by the shoulders and held on. "To have help is strength. To have friends is strength."

"Ha! You didn't believe that when you turned yourself into a beast."

He grimaced, but turned it back around on me. "And to think," he said playfully, "had I not done, you and Edelgard would never have reconciled."

"Ugh." I shoved him back a step. "Don't try to argue you had that all planned out."

"No…"

He dropped his arms to his sides, stared out at the horizon and the setting sun.

"It is true," he said, words choked with emotion. "I turned my back on you that day."

"You didn't." I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist, pressed my nose into his shoulder. "You looked different, and your mind was lost, but you were still there to defend and support me. Even in a body cursed by the Goddess of Fódlan, your devotion and your love were unwavering. I'll never forget it."

He turned in my embrace and lifted my chin. "Thank you…"

He looked away, casting about for some honorific to use. "Your Excellency" was proper for ambassadors, but that was too absurd even for him.

He sighed and gave in at last. "… Dimitri."

Then I kissed him under the burning sky, and he swept the hat off my head so everyone could see, and be awed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloooo sappy ending!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading all the way through! If you enjoyed this story, please consider sharing it with your fandom friends and social media followers—I would love for as many people to see it as possible. I can be found on Twitter @valteshan
> 
> If you're wondering why Edelgard went through with the fake execution when she was just going to let him live, she was testing him and the Faerghus nobility to see if they would really accept his death. As a proxy for whether he/they would accept their eventual submission to the Empire.
> 
> That's all for now! Be well and stay safe out there. <3


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